As he has done each year since 2015, former President Barack Obama released his favorite movies, songs, and books of the year on Facebook and Instagram. Obama’s taste in movies ranges from the popular Black Panther to some very impressive indie films including Eighth Grade, If Beale Street Could Talk, documentary films – Minding the Gap, Won’t You Be My Neighbor; and foreign films – Roma, Shoplifters.
The Australian crime-drama West of Sunshine tells of a father who has less than a day to pay back a gambling debt, while looking after his young son.
Dark Sky Films released the trailer and poster for Mega Time Squad, the sci-fi/crime thriller/comedy about a low level thief stumbling upon an ancient time-travel device. The film which has received rave reviews will open in theaters and on VOD on February 15, 2019.
In Rust Creek, the new thriller from Kelly & Cal director Jen McGowan opening in theaters and VOD January 4th, an ordinary woman must summon extraordinary courage to survive a nightmare odyssey.
Love, faith and civil rights collide in a southern town as evangelical Christians and drag queens step into the spotlight to dismantle stereotypes in the trailer for the documentary The Gospel of Eureka. Directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher; and narrated by Mx Justin Vivian Bond, Kino Lorber will release The Gospel of Eureka on February 8, 2019.
Annapurna Pictures released the official trailer and teaser poster for the comedy-drama Where’d You Go, Bernadette directed by Richard Linklater and starring Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup and Kristen Wiig. Where’d You Go, Bernadette also starring Emma Nelson, James Urbaniak, Judy Greer, Troian Bellisario, Zoe Chao and Laurence Fishburne opens in theaters on March 22, 2019.
Samuel Goldwyn Films released the new trailer for Mapplethorpe starring Matt Smith as the Robert Mapplethorpe, considered as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. The film directed by Ondi Timoner and also starring Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey, Mark Moses, Carolyn McCormick, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Kerry Butler, will be released in theaters on March 1st, 2019.
Robert Mapplethorpe (Matt Smith) is arguably one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Mapplethorpe discovered himself both sexually and artistically in New York City throughout the 70’s and 80’s. The film explores Mapplethorpe’s life from moments before he and Patti Smith moved into the famed Chelsea hotel, home to a world of bohemian chic. Here he begins photographing its inhabitants and his new found circle of friends including artists and musicians, socialites, film stars, and members of the S&M underground
Mapplethorpe’s work displayed eroticism in a way that had never been examined nor displayed before to the public. The film explores the intersection of his art and his sexuality along with his struggle for mainstream recognition. MAPPLETHORPE offers a nuanced portrait of an artist at the height of his craft and of the self-destructive impulses that threaten to undermine it all.
NONA[/caption]
Nona from husband and wife director/producer team Michael Polish and Kate Bosworth is a harrowing, compassionate thriller that puts a face to Central America’s human trafficking industry. The film starring Sulem Calderon, Jesy McKinney, Giancarlo Ruiz, and Kate Bosworth will open theatrically in New York (Village East Cinema) and Los Angeles (Laemmle’s NoHo 7) on Friday, December 7.
Nona (Sulem Calderon), a young woman in a shantytown in Honduras meets Hecho (Jesy McKinney), a handsome traveler who claims to be nursing a broken heart. Intrigued by his carefree wanderlust, she takes him up on his offer to leave Honduras behind and head toward the United States, where she can finally reunite with her mother. As the pair travels north by car, by bus, by boat, and by foot through Guatemala and Mexico, Nona’s world seems to gloriously open up, as she dreams of opportunity and happiness a few countries away. But when Hecho’s true intentions slowly become clear, her journey turns perilous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dttY00V_7wQ
If Beale Street Could Talk[/caption]
Annapurna Pictures released the final trailer for If Beale Street Could Talk a timeless and moving love story set in early-1970s Harlem. Academy Award-winning writer/director Barry Jenkins’ first film since the Best Picture Oscar-winning Moonlight is If Beale Street Could Talk, his adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel – the first English-language feature film based on the work of the author, to whom the movie is dedicated. The film opens in theaters on December 14, 2018.
Set in early-1970s Harlem, If Beale Street Could Talk is a timeless and moving love story of both a couple’s unbreakable bond and the African-American family’s empowering embrace, as told through the eyes of 19-year-old Tish Rivers (screen newcomer KiKi Layne). A daughter and wife-to-be, Tish vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her artist fiancé Alonzo Hunt, who goes by the nickname Fonny (Stephan James). Friends since childhood, the devoted couple dream of a future together but their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit.
Through the unique intimacy and power of cinema, If Beale Street Could Talk honors the author’s prescient words and imagery, charting the emotional currents navigated in an unforgiving and racially biased world as the filmmaker poetically crosses time frames to show how love and humanity endure.
Vox Lux[/caption]
The new trailer dropped today for Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman and Jude Law, that opens in theaters on December 7, 2018. Vox Lux follows the rise of Celeste from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop superstardom. The film spans 18 years and traces important cultural moments through her eyes, starting in 1999 and concluding in 2017.
In 1999, teenage Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) survives a violent tragedy. After singing at a memorial service, Celeste transforms into a burgeoning pop star with the help of her songwriter sister (Stacy Martin) and a talent manager (Jude Law). Celeste’s meteoric rise to fame and concurrent loss of innocence dovetails with a shattering terrorist attack on the nation, elevating the young powerhouse to a new kind of celebrity: American icon, secular deity, global superstar.
By 2017, adult Celeste (Natalie Portman) is mounting a comeback after a scandalous incident that derailed her career. Touring in support of her sixth album, a compendium of sci-fi anthems entitled “Vox Lux,” the indomitable, foul-mouthed pop savior must overcome her personal and familial struggles to navigate motherhood, madness and monolithic fame in the Age of Terror.
In Brady Corbet’s second feature, following his 2015 breakout debut The Childhood of a Leader— winner of the Best Director and Best Debut Film prizes at the Venice Film Festival — Celeste becomes a symbol of the cult of celebrity and the media machine in all its guts, grit and glory. Featuring original songs by Sia, an original score by Scott Walker, and a transcendent performance by Natalie Portman, personifying and pummeling the zeitgeist, Vox Lux is an origin story about the forces that shape us, as individuals, nations, and gods.
The Rider by Chloe Zhao[/caption]
Chloe Zhao’s The Rider snagged the top award for Best Feature at 2018 Gotham Independent Film Awards, but the night really belonged to Eighth Grade and First Reformed, who each won two awards, the most of the night. Eighth Grade won the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award for director Bo Burnham and Breakthrough Actor for Elsie Fisher; and First Reformed won the awards for Best Screenplay for Paul Schrader, along with Best Actor for Ethan Hawke.
Documentary films were well represented this year with Hale County This Morning, This Evening directed by RaMell Ross taking home the award for Best Documentary; and another documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? directed by Morgan Neville, won the IFP Gotham Audience Award.
The Favourite continued to dominate the early awards circuit winning the Special Jury Award For Ensemble Performance for Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz
The new trailer debuted today for GHOSTBOX COWBOY, written and directed by John Maringouin; and starring David Zellner (director of KUMIKO THE TREASURE HUNTER, DAMSEL). The film also featuring Robert Longstreet, Specialist, Vincent Xie, Carrie Gege Zhang, J.R. Cazet will open theatrically in Los Angeles on November 30, San Francisco on December 7 and New York on December 14.
John Maringouin’s brilliant, darkly comedic morality tale examines a wildly ambitious Westerner who tries to get in on China’s tech boom and finds that he may not be up to the task. Texan Jimmy Van Horn (David Zellner) is a cowboy huckster who arrives in the booming city of Shenzhen with a couple of bitcoins and huge ambitions of parlaying them into economic success. Lucky for Jimmy, he’s got a friend holding open the back door to this “accidental Shangri-La” — Bob Grainger (Robert Longstreet) – who’s gotten new teeth, a blonde wig and looks twenty years younger. He promises to do the same for Jimmy in 6 weeks. Maringouin (BIG RIVER MAN) develops a startling visual language in this excitingly fresh, complex perspective on China’s economic growth – and the gold rush mentality it inspires.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf2ybQTE-eg