Could Mediocre Movies Save Movie Theaters? ‘Ticket to Paradise,’ ‘A Man Called Otto’ and ‘80 for Brady’ Say Yes

Jenelle Riley Deputy Awards and Features Editor This article first appeared as part of Jenelle Riley’s Acting Up newsletter – to subscribe for early content and weekly updates on all things acting, visit the Acting Up signup page. The Academy Awards are this Sunday and it’s actually been a great year for film and particularly actors. So many of them have been recognized with nominations or wins, between the Oscars and the SAG Awards, not to mention BAFTA, Golden Globes, Critics Choice, Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards.

confirmed the news of his death. Shortly after WWII, when Americans feared the impacts of nuclear testing and radiation, Gordon created mutated monster movies that wreaked havoc on the world.

Edward Zwick, the Oscar-winning producer of the movie Shakespeare in Love, has written a new essay that revealed so many bombshells about what went into making the movie.

A true Hollywood queen! Julia Roberts established herself as a leading actress in 1990’s Pretty Woman and has since continued to be one of Hollywood’s most prominent stars.

EXCLUSIVE: Dermot Mulroney (Scream VI) and Rachel Griffiths (The Wilds) are the newest additions to the cast of the untitled romantic comedy from director Will Gluck (Easy A) that Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are leading for Sony.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Creed III” delivered a powerful box office knockout with its $58.6 million domestic debut, clobbering expectations and franchise records in the process. And there’s more good news for struggling theater owners starved for compelling content. It looks like the good fortune will continue in March with “Scream VI” (March 10), “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” (March 17), “John Wick: Chapter 4” (March 24) and “Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (March 31). There’s at least one major release every weekend through the rest of the month, offering the kind of stability that’s been desperately missing during the great box office reset.

We Need To Talk About Kevin and Marvel’s Doctor Strange, revealed her favourite films in a poll for Sight And Sound magazine.Since 1952, the magazine has asked filmmakers every decade for their lists of the greatest films of all time. As part of the Winter 2022-23 issue, directors like Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson and Barry Jenkins were invited to contribute their favourites.Swinton, who has directing and producing credits over her career, features a mix of Japanese animation and British classics in her list. You can check out the list below.1. A Matter Of Life And Death (1946)2. Vertigo (1958)3. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953)4. To Be Or Not To Be (1942)5. Walkabout (1971)6. Journey To Italy (1954)7. Pickpocket (1959)8. Jeanne Dielman (1975)9. My Neighbour Totoro (1988)10. La Dolce Vita (1960)The actor’s top pick, A Matter Of Life And Death, is directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Wes Anderson has shared a list of his favourite films of all time.The director, known for films The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Royal Tenenbaums, revealed his favourite films of all time in a poll for Sight And Sound magazine.Since 1952, the magazine has asked various filmmakers every decade for their lists of the greatest films of all time. As part of the Winter 2022-23 issue, directors like Anderson, Barry Jenkins, Ari Aster and Luca Guadagnino were invited to contribute their favourites.While Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was named the overall favourite from the collective votes, Anderson’s personal list consisted entirely of French cinema.You can check out Anderson’s top 10 list below.1. La Grande Illusion (1937)2. Quai des Orfèvres (1947)3. The Earrings Of Madame de… (1953)4. Vivre Sa Vie (1962)5. The Man Who Loved Women (1977)6. Loulou (1980)7. Vagabond (1985)8. Olivier, Olivier (1992)9. It All Starts Today (1999)10. Kings And Queen (2004)The director’s top pick, La Grande Illusion, is directed by Jean Renoir.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s was built geeking out over home movies. Daley, fresh from his debut as one of the geeks on the cult TV classic “Freaks and Geeks,” was one of the teen stars of the 2000-01 ABC sitcom “The Geena Davis Show,” and Goldstein was the youngest member of the writing staff. One day, Daley grabbed Goldstein to show him the stop-motion short film he’d made of himself getting hit by a car. “It was amazing — really well done,” recalls Goldstein, who is sitting across from Daley in their small office on the Paramount studio lot. “And I, of course, was like, ‘All right, I’m bringing in the shorts that I made when I was his age.’”

When one thinks of women and Elvis Presley, it’s either his widow Priscilla, his late daughter Lisa Marie, or the legion of ladies left weak in the knee when the badass kid from Tupelo, Mississippi began shaking that moneymaker. In the case of the eight-time Oscar-nominated film Elvis, the front men are writer/director Baz Luhrmann, Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. Behind the camera, the film was entirely made possible by a chorus of women, many of whom are nominated. They include Luhrmann’s partner Catherine Martin, who’s up for the Production Design Oscar with cohorts Beverley Dunne and Karen Murphy; Mandy Walker, for Cinematography; Gail Berman for Best Picture with Martin, Luhrmann, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss; and Martin again for Costume Design.

“Elvis” “I always thought, if you’re going to do a movie about a music icon, go big,” Luhrmann said when he first spoke to TheWrap about Elvis. And the film does indeed go big, even though the writer-director started with the idea of Elvis as canvas or Elvis as metaphor before realizing that the man was pretty interesting too – particularly when played by an actor as obsessive as Butler, who immersed himself in all things Elvis for years.

A retired quarterback, a divorced dad, and a television football analyst walk into a bar…

Jennifer Garner straps a fake baby to her chest while filming a funny scene for her upcoming movie, Family Leave.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Receiving the SAG Life Achievement Award on Feb. 26 has a special meaning to Sally Field. “It’s my tribe,” she says of her fellow actors. “It’s the group I most wanted to be respected by and to be included in, and that means a lot to me.” And while she says she has yet to write her speech, that’s understandable — the actor has been busy with promotion for her latest film, “80 for Brady,” now in theaters. Field joins the likes of Robert De Niro, Sidney Poitier and Rita Moreno who have previouslybeen bestowed with the honor. Field spoke about her career, working with Lee Strasberg and being a sports fan with Variety.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “A Man Called Otto,” a heartfelt drama starring Tom Hanks as a cranky widower, has notched an important box office milestone, crossing $100 million globally. The film’s tally stands at $100.4 million, including $61.2 million in North America and $39.2 million internationally. Overseas, the top-selling markets are the United Kingdom ($6.28 million), Australia ($5.17 million), Mexico ($5.06 million), Spain ($2.6 million) and Germany ($2.5 million). In pandemic times, the $100 million benchmark is notable because only a few movies aimed at older audiences, such as Baz Luhrmann’s kaleidoscopic biopic “Elvis,” Tom Cruise’s sequel “Top Gun: Maverick,” Brad Pitt’s action-comedy “Bullet Train,” have managed to connect the box office since COVID.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man is taking on his scariest adversary yet: a 500-pound black bear on cocaine. Universal’s gruesome action-comedy “Cocaine Bear” won’t come close to “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” in terms of weekend ticket sales, but the drugged-up animal adventure is expected to start strong at the domestic box office. “Cocaine Bear” hopes to take in $15 million to $17 million from 3,500 North American theaters, with a chance that positive buzz could propel initial returns to $20 million. The wild R-rated movie was budgeted at roughly $35 million, which was mostly dedicated to the CGI used to bring to life the coked-out grizzly alongside the human cast of Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Brooklynn Prince. Elizabeth Banks directed “Cocaine Bear,” which is one of today’s rare original theatrical comedies. (But viewers, beware, it’s not exactly a laugh-a-minute romp… unless you’re tickled by blood, blood and more blood.) Inspired by a stranger-than-fiction story about a drug runner’s plane crash, the film imagines the events that would have transpired if the American black bear that ingested a duffle bag full of blow had lived to tell the tale.

Focus Features has set a September 8 global release date for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. That will give some breadth to the post-Labor Day box office and an option for older female moviegoers, that weekend already having New Line’s The Nun 2 on the schedule.

Tom Brady is a cat daddy! The retired football star recently adopted two adorable kittens that look like siblings. On Wednesday, he posted a video on his Instagram story showing the cats wrestling.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I can’t offer you chocolate or flowers or a love note from a Hemsworth brother. But I can offer you a swath of escapist movies to suit or soothe your mood. Take two of these and tweet me in the morning.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Ant-Man,” released eight years ago, was a comic-book movie that almost inadvertently used its hyper-miniaturized cowboy-on-ant-back superhero as a metaphor for what a tiny place the film itself occupied in the MCU. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” (2018) was a bit less small. The director, Peyton Reed, who had a background in human comedy (“Down with Love,” “Bring It On”), expanded the sequel into a puckish fantasy of scale, with characters and objects popping back and forth in size, though the result was still more amusing than momentous. Paul Rudd’s nice-guy divorced dad turned badass metallic bug Scott Lang may have been an official Avenger, but that still didn’t give him more than a flyweight significance.