‘A Brighter Tomorrow’ Review: Nanni Moretti Puts a Playful Spin on a Director’s Late-Career Crisis

It might sound like a backhanded compliment, but Downtown Owl feels more like a pilot than a feature film and may yet yield a series. In today’s market, that could work out just fine for directors Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe, who, after a choppy start, finesse Chuck Klosterman’s digressive 2007 novel into a thoughtful, broad-canvas ensemble piece. T Bone Burnett helps nail things down with an eclectic alt-country score and soundtrack, infused with the music and spirit of Elvis Costello, but it’s Rabe that holds it all together onscreen with a controlled yet still wildly uninhibited performance.

As often proves the case with talky indies, a single visual flourish in “Downtown Owl” emerges to ensure the film does not become a mere plot and dialogue delivery mechanism. Here, that’s the long lens shot, which flattens out images at the edges to incorporate more information in the visual field.

For all involved, prolific author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman’s 2008 book “Downtown Owl” sets the stage for a number of firsts. For starters, it’s Klosterman’s earliest fiction novel and is the source at the heart of Lily Rabe (“The Tender Bar”) and Hamish Linklater’s (“Midnight Mass”) joint directorial debut which just premiered at the Tribeca Festival.If only the freshness associated with all these firsts was felt in the film by Rabe and Linklater, who are both creative collaborators and real-life partners.

EXCLUSIVE: A founding partner of Kleinberg Lange Cuddy & Carlo and a fixture in the Hollywood legal community for five decades, Kenneth Kleinberg built his practice lawyering the likes of Jack Nicholson, J.K. Rowling, Johnny Depp, musicians like Toby Keith and brands like Lego, among many others.

EastEnders star Jessie Wallace, famed for her role as Kat Slater on the BBC soap, looked stunning as she attended the 2023 British Soap Awards in a gorgeous strapless black lace gown alongside her co-stars on Saturday night.

EastEnders star Jessie Wallace looked stunning during the 2023 British Soap Awards and was worlds away from her character Kat Slater. On Saturday evening our favourite soap stars glammed up to attend The British Soap Awards 2023 to celebrate the best and brightest talent from the past year at the lavish soiree.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Jennifer Esposito remembers being asked to audition for “The Sopranos” more than once. She declined each time. “I chose to not go up for it when they would call me in because it was like, ‘I can’t relive this,’” Esposito recalls. “The only thing that used to make me crazy about the show when I did watch it was the character of Meadow because she was very nice. The girls I grew up around wanted to kill me, wanted to kill me every day. So it was PTSD.” Esposito grew up among organized crime on Staten Island. “Staten Island is the same Staten Island from when I left when I was 18 years old,” says the 50-year-old actor, whose credits span from television’s “Spin City” and “Blue Bloods” to the Oscar-winning “Crash.” “It’s still the same place. You need to understand that nothing leaves this island. It’s a very strange time warp of a place.”

. And she seems to have added a new piece to her vast collection of office-wear chic jackets, which she wore on a visit to the Windsor Family Hub on June 6. The princess has never been big on color-blocking, but we'll give her points for pairing this blazer, which has a light blue checked pattern reminiscent of seersucker, with a pair of navy blue cigarette trousers.A more daring fashionista might have finished the look with a silk blouse or , but the princess went for the more demure option.

Kate Middleton once again showcased her timeless sense of style as she dazzled guests while attending a royal wedding reception in Amman, Jordan. The Princess of Wales, accompanied by her husband Prince William, attended a lavish reception on Thursday following the wedding of Jordan’s Crown Prince Al Hussein and Saudi Arabian architect Rajwa Al Saif.To mark the special occasion, Kate sported a stunning but modest floor length gown complete with long sleeves and covered in row upon row of bronze sequins.The gown was designed by Jenny Packham, and is the “Georgia” model that Kate has previously sported in the past in another colour way - emerald green while attending the Royal Variety Awards in London.

, Chanel presented its Chanel Métiers D’Art collection in Tokyo on June 1. As always, a roster of international stars were in attendance, from actor Park Seo-joon to Blackpink’s Jennie Kim, who performed renditions of “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Killing Me Softly” at the event.Kristen Stewart in Tokyo on June 1. Another standout A-lister on the FROW: long-time brand ambassador Kristen Stewart, who put a contemporary spin on the iconic Chanel suit.

We already know that Blumhouse loves a franchise. The micro-budget horror film company is always keen to turn a successful one-off film into a long-running feature franchise.

EXCLUSIVE: Mandy Moore (Dr. Death) and Kumail Nanjiani (Welcome to Chippendales) have closed deals to star in Thread: An Insidious Tale, a new film in the Insidious universe from Screen Gems, Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster.

William Earl Robert Englund starred in one of the most revered science fiction series of all time; he’s directed films; voiced video game characters; and acted in scores of movies and shows. But he’s aware that his legacy is playing horror icon Freddy Krueger in eight “Nightmare on Elm Street” films and a TV series. An upcoming documentary — “Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story,” out June 6 — dives into Englund’s unique silver screen journey, of which he is self-effacing. “I know who icons are,” he says. “I’m not an icon. Maybe Freddy Krueger is, but I’m not. I’m just a character actor, a utility actor who’s been very lucky.”

Already a big enough hit in the U.K. to earn a second season, anyone who has watched even a few minutes of the NBA Playoffs on TNT has seen the ubiquitous ads for “The Lazarus Project,” premiering June 4th, and probably wondered what the heck is going on.

Having previously won the Palme d’Or in 2001 for “The Son’s Room” and premiered the majority of his films in competition, Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has been a mainstay at the Cannes Film Festival for several decades.

Nanni Moretti returns to the film-within-a-film format with a fitfully funny new comedy that, this time, offers two films-within-a-film (plus a surreal dream sequence). It is, frankly, a relief after 2021’s terrible, soapy melodrama Three Floors, and, at a crisp 96 minutes, so much easier to swallow. In some ways a companion piece to 2015’s Mia Madre, it finds the director putting all his neuroses back on show, pontificating on everything from movie violence to streaming platforms and why wearing slippers onscreen is a fashion no-no that can only be pulled off by Aretha Franklin in The Blues Brothers.

Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti made it clear why he was making fun of Netflix in his latest Cannes film entry, A Brighter Tomorrow.

Three Floors” opened with a high-profile belly flop, festival-stalwart Nanni Moretti returns to Cannes with “A Brighter Tomorrow,” a comeback of sorts that also airs a list of grievances and could serve – should need arise – as a closing statement.Not that it likely will. Funny and endearing in some places, and typically grumpy and old-fashioned in others, “A Brighter Tomorrow” should, at very least, keep Moretti far from director’s jail for years to come.

CANNES (Reuters) - Renowned Italian director Nanni Moretti both directs and stars in "A Brighter Tomorrow," which premiered worldwide on Wednesday and is his ninth film to compete for the Cannes Film Festival's top prize. So far he has come home with the Palme d'Or only once - more than 20 years ago, with "The Son's Room" in 2001.

Eagle-eyed EastEnders fans were in stitches on as they spotted soap favourite Stacey Slater's username on an OnlyFans-style site. In the BBC One soap Stacey has resorted to stripping off to sell saucy images of herself after experiencing money problems.