News

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News The Scarlet Drop.John Ford’s The Scarlet Drop (1918), presumed to be lost for over 100 years, has been found in a warehouse in Santiago, Chile, that was slated to be demolished. “I think there are some films that decide to live,” says Jaime Cordova, who rescued and digitized the film, which stars Harry Carey as a defector from the Union Army who joins a gang of marauders.The Berlin government’s decision to slash its cultural funding budget by 13 percent (€130 million) has prompted widespread backlash from the city’s arts community. Roughly 450 institutions rely upon state subsidies and Berlin cultural workers predict closures and mass layoffs will be the inevitable result of this budget reduction. Sinema Transtopia...

Silvia Pinal, a Mexican actress known as an icon for her work during the Golden Age of Cinema, died Nov. 28 at the age of 93.

Mexico’s cultural ministry on X shared that Pinal had died after starring in more than 60 films and plays over her decades-spanning career. She died after a urinary tract infection and years of health complications. Pinal’s official Instagram account also honored her.

“Your absence will always hurt me, but every memory of you will give me the strength to move forward,” the Instagram account shared. “As long as you live in my heart, I will always feel that you are still with me. I will love you forever, Mom. Rest in peace, Silvia Pinal.”

Pinal was known as a collaborator in the 1960s with the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, starring in the Cannes award-winning “Viridiana,” “The Exterminating Angel” and “Simon of the Desert.” She also...

Silvia Pinal is dead. Per Variety, the star of Luis Buñuel's Viridana and The Exterminating Angel, known as the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema's "last diva," died on November 28. She was 93.

"Your absence will hurt me forever, but every memory of you will give me the strength to move forward,...

Silvia Pinal’s Net Worth Explored ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Silvia Pinal was a legendary Mexican actress who worked in the entertainment industry for over 70 years. She passed away on November 28th, 2024, at the age of 93, after being admitted to the hospital with a urinary tract infection.

Pinal is considered one of the greatest female stars in Mexico. She worked in several films during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and accumulated a considerable fortune. Let’s take a look at Silvia Pinal’s net worth.

Silvia Pinal’s Net Worth

According to a report by Marca.com, Silvia Pinal’s net worth was $50 million at the time of her death in November 2024. The actress left several lavish assets, including a mansion in Pedregal, Mexico City, and a theater named after her.

Trending Has Megan Fox Turned Down Roles Over Graphic S*x Scenes?

Did Jason Momoa Refuse To Wear A Wig For Aquaman?...

Over a career that spanned seven decades, Pinal was a muse to director Luis Buñuel, appearing in 60s classics such as Viridiana

Silvia Pinal, an actor from Mexico’s Golden Age of cinema and muse to the director Luis Buñuel, has died aged 93.

Pinal got her start in theatre in the 1940s, working with the director Rafael Banquells – the first of her four husbands. She became a star in 1950 aged 18, when she appeared opposite two of Mexico’s biggest comedic film stars: Germán Valdés (Tin-Tan) in The King of the Neighborhood and Mario Moreno (Cantinflas) in The Doorman. In 1952 she appeared alongside heartthrob Pedro Infante in A Place Near Heaven.

by Chad Kennerk

Images courtesy of Silents Synced

In explaining montage, or ‘assembly’ as he liked to refer to it, Alfred Hitchcock once explained the Kuleshov Effect or, as Hitch called it, ‘pure cinematics’; the juxtaposition of imagery to create different ideas. In the same way, comparison and contrast of music and image have been used practically since the origins of film language to create additional meaning. What would the shower scene in Psycho be without Bernard Herrmann’s strings? Jaws wouldn’t be nearly as ominous sans John Williams’ iconic ‘da-dum…da-dum.’ In the same spirit, Silents Synced reimagines film score by pairing classic silent films with the music of contemporary artists. Specifically designed for independent movie theatres, the new event cinema series kicked off in the US with an appropriately released October pairing of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac with F. W. Murnau’s 1922 symphony of horror,...

From the day that Christopher Columbus set sail from Huelva to beach up in the Caribbean, the Spanish city has always had strong ties to Latin America.

With Spain still laboring under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, when a group of young film buffs at Huelva’s Film Club aimed to galvanize the city’s culture, “It was logical that we looked to the richness and plenitude of culture that came from abroad,” recalls José Luis Ruíz Díaz, Huelva’s first director. “It was also logical that we had a large interest in Latin America, adds Vicente Quiroga, its longtime head of press. Relaxing, censorship in Spain also allowed access to a suddenly broader sweep of foreign titles.

Huelva’s first 50 editions have proved a faithful reflection of the evolution of cinema in Latin America, Portugal and Spain. Some milestones:

1975: Ruíz Díaz launches Huelva’s first Ibero-American Film Week with Argentina’s “La Raulito.

The film-maker’s 1984 shocker gave pop culture a new, physics-defying villain in the misshape of Freddy Krueger

From the beginning of his career, when he reworked Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring into The Last House on the Left, one of the nastiest (and smartest) exploitation horror films of the 1970s, the director Wes Craven had the unique ability to reconcile high-minded ideas with low-down genre kicks. In person, he had a professorial air because he was once, in fact, a professor, teaching English and the humanities at various north-eastern colleges before picking up a 16mm camera. He would turn The Hills Have Eyes into a cannibalistic shocker that doubled as a stark class critique and give the villainous couple of The People Under the Stairs the unmistakable echo of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. He understood as well as anyone how horror could be a vessel for larger themes, so...

“Ena – Queen Victoria Eugenia,” the screening highlight in Mipcom’s Spain Country of Honor celebrations, begins with a bang.

Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen Victoria youngest granddaughter, marries Spain’s Alfonso Xiii at Madrid’s San Jerónimo Royal Monastery on May 31, 1906. Splendid first scenes see the couple after the wedding in their carriage, Ena smiling as crowds cry her name as the royal carriage sweeps past.

But her happiness lasted less than two miles, the distance between Los Jerónimos to Madrid’s old part Calle Mayor where an anarchist throws a bomb. The opening scenes end with Ena and Alfonso slumped unconscious in their carriage.

Created by ‘The Department of Time’s’ Javier Olivares and directed by Anaïs Pareto and Estel Díaz, “Ena” is produced by Spanish public broadcaster Rtve, and Spain’s biggest royal drama to date.

What it isn’t, however, is a “The Crown” or “Maxima” knock-off.

Note: The following story contains spoilers from “Grotesquerie” Episode 7.

“Grotesquerie” star Micaela Diamond always knew Episode 7 was going to be a challenge. Even by the wild standards of this FX show from Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken, “Unplugged” is on an entirely different level.

“Episode 7 is like if ‘Fatal Attraction’ was directed by Luis Buñuel except it’s ‘Grotesquerie’ and Max Winkler is just a genius,” Diamond told TheWrap of the game-changing installment.

After six episodes spent investigating a serial killer known only as Grotesquerie, Lois (Niecy Nash-Betts) finally uncovered that the killer was none other than Father Charlie (Nicholas Alexander Chavez). As everyone around her celebrated, Lois couldn’t shake the feeling that the case hadn’t been fully solved. That’s when she zeroed in on her partner in solving the crimes, Sister Megan (Diamond). As the pair made dinner together, Lois slowly outlined her theory,...

It hardly needs repeating, but director John Carpenter is known for making multiple horror classics, including "Halloween," "The Fog," "Christine," "The Thing," "Prince of Darkness," "In the Mouth of Madness" and "Vampires." Although Carpenter doesn't have a notable, recognizable style or motif in his filmography (apart from recurring actors) he does seem to possess a subtle, natural mastery of filmmaking craft that makes all his films, even the bad ones, imminently watchable.

Carpenter loves horror, of course, but oddly, he's not a horror guy at heart. He possesses an old-world workman's attitude when it comes to filmmaking, just sort of sussing out, by instinct, how to shoot a scene, regardless of genre. Carpenter has given multiple interviews where he's talked about monster movies and sci-fi flicks that inspired him, but moreso, Carpenter talks about the films of John Ford and Howard Hawks, two American filmmakers best known for their high-profile Westerns.

The first big laugh in Rumours hits before the opening credits have even finished rolling: “The producers would like to thank the G7 leaders for their support and consultation during the making of this movie.” As political bloggers, chronic doomscrollers and any conspiracy theorist with access to the internet will tell you, the “Group of Seven” is an annual summit in which selected world-power presidents and prime ministers discuss global issues and cross-governmental solutions. The national leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan and Italy have...

Filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has earned a reputation for crafting surreal comedies that turn expectations upside down. His movies embrace absurdity and unexpected twists. With Daaaaaalí!, Dupieux set out to create a “fake biopic” about the legendary Spanish artist Salvador Dali.

The film stars Anaïs Demoustier as journalist Judith, who’s assigned to interview the eccentric Dali. But capturing the famously shape-shifting artist proves challenging. Dali is portrayed by multiple actors throughout, with his age changing randomly.

Dupieux crafts Daaaaaalí! as more of an homage than a straightforward biopic. It celebrates Dali’s surrealist spirit rather than claiming to be the definitive telling of his life. The director draws from Dali’s fascination with dreams and the subconscious through Daaaaaalí!’s experimental storytelling.

This review will analyze how Daaaaaalí!’s narrative structure comments on traditional biopic tropes and self-mythologizing artists. It will also explore Dupieux’s surreal approach and discussion of reality,...

In a scene near the end of Quentin Dupieux’s Daaaaaalí!, Judith (Anaïs Demoustier), a French journalist assigned to interview Salvador Dalí, is riding the bus, in the doldrums after the latest failure to capture her mercurial subject on film. The facial hair of the man seated across from her reminds her of Dalí’s iconic mustache, and after Judith aks him if it’s an intentional homage, he retreats behind his newspaper. The front-page headline reads, “Barista Lets Off Steam on Paris Bus”—a reference to the insult that Judith’s producer (Romain Duris) calls her—with a photograph of Judith below. Dupieux then cuts to a reverse shot of her that begins as a perfect match of the photo, one of countless flourishes of dream logic in the film that subvert conventional cinematic handling of time and space.

That there are almost as many actors portraying Dalí as...

Above: Official poster by Yves Tinguely for the 12th New York Film Festival in 1974.The twelfth edition of the New York Film Festival, which took place 50 years ago this week, in September 1974, could have been convincingly called the New York European Film Festival. Out of the seventeen new feature films playing, all but two were European: seven French, three German, two Italian, two Swiss, and one British. Though festival director Richard Roud wrote in the program that “one of the most exciting developments in world cinema these past two years has been the re-emergence of the American film,” there was in fact only one American film in the main lineup (the world premiere of John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence) though there was also a program of four American shorts by Mirra Bank, Martha Coolidge, William Greaves, and an exciting upstart named Martin Scorsese. There was just one...

Catherine Deneuve will preside over the 50th edition of the Cesar Awards, France’s equivalent to the Oscars.

As part of her honorary role as president of this milestone edition, Deneuve will be delivering the opening speech at the ceremony. The gala event will take place on Feb. 28 at the Olympia concert hall and will be broadcast on French pay TV group Canal+, a media partner of the Cesar Awards.

“Who better than an extraordinary actress to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Césars? Thanks to exceptional talent, a unique career and timeless grace, Catherine Deneuve embodies the very essence of the seventh art,” said the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma.

The French star, whose career spans nearly seven decades, has starred in a raft of iconic films directed by some of the world’s most revered filmmakers, from Luis Buñuel (“Belle de jour”) to François Truffaut (“Le Dernier Metro...

From “Rubber” to “Wrong” to “Smoking Causes Coughing” and “The Second Act,” eccentric French auteur Quentin Dupieux is quickly becoming one of Europe’s most prolific filmmakers akin to a Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Albeit with eccentric, often fourth-wall-breaking comedies. He had two films debut at festivals in 2023, including the heckler hostage comedy “Yannick” at Locarno and the Salvador Dalí “real fake biopic” “Daaaaaalí!” out of competition at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A movie where five actors play the surrealist icon, “Daaaaaalí!” is now making its way to U.S. theaters courtesy of Music Box Films, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “For journalist Judith Rochant (Anaïs Demoustier), the assignment to interview renowned artist Salvador Dalí is a great career opportunity–if only he would agree to sit still and answer a single question. What begins as a 15-minute conversation blows up into a bonafide cinematographic documentary portrait,...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in Quentin Tarantino’s case, it seems a foot might be worth even more. The director’s alleged love for feet is no secret—it’s like a cherry on top of his already flamboyant directorial style. From the iconic ‘wiggle your big toe’ moment in Kill Bill to those foot massages in Pulp Fiction, the director, 61, has turned foot shots into a cinematic trademark.

Quentin Tarantino in Death Proof | Credit: Troublemaker Studios

And if you Google ‘Quentin Tarantino foot fetish’, you’ll be treated to a buffet of theories, articles, and enough foot-related banter to make even the most ardent shoe collector a little envious. Now, if you think this fascination is just smoke and mirrors, think again. We have evidence that’s both hilarious and heartwarming. One of his ardent female fans managed to get the director to autograph her feet,...

The strangest thing about Guy Maddin’s Rumours, co-directed with frequent collaborators Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, might just be how relatively ordinary it feels. Eschewing the primitive style for which the Winnipeg filmmaker developed a following, as well as the nesting-doll structure of The Forbidden Room, his latest stages its genre-inflected political satire—one that’s equal parts Luis Buñuel and John Carpenter—in a surprisingly straightforward fashion. Maybe that’s because, despite still featuring a host of odd sights like a giant glowing brain in the woods, the film’s timely subject matter and heightened and portentous atmosphere reflects reality in an all too down-to-earth manner.

Rumours is set at a G7 summit, that oft-protested gathering of leaders of some of the world’s wealthiest democracies, during which they put on a show of global unity, if nothing else, given the summit’s lack of verifiable, concrete, real-life outcomes.

Argentine filmmaker Gastón Solnicki is cooking up his latest feature, “The Souffleur,” which he’ll be presenting during the Venice Gap-Financing Market, which runs Aug. 30 – Sep. 1.

The film tells the story of Lucius Glantz, an American who’s managed the same international hotel in Vienna for 30 years. When he discovers one day that the venerable building is slated to be sold and demolished, he embarks on a quest to stop its destruction, pitting him against a cocky Argentine realtor. As the conflict between them escalates, the hotel’s trademark soufflé mysteriously stops rising, forcing Glantz to confront the prospect of the end of all he holds dear.

Directed by Solnicki off a script he co-wrote with Julia Niemann, “The Souffleur” is produced by Gabriele Kranzelbinder and Eugenio Fernández Abril for Vienna-based Little Magnet Films, Primo and Solnicki’s Argentine production company Filmy Wiktora.

The director tells Variety that the idea...

Am 10. Oktober startet Neue Visionen Javier Espadas Porträt eines der bedeutendsten Filmemacher des 20. Jahrhunderts in den deutschen Kinos. Jetzt wurde der Trailer veröffentlicht.

Mit Filmen wie „Ein andalusischer Hund“, „Die Vergessenen“ und „Der diskrete Charme der Bourgeoisie“ war Luis Buñuel einer der bedeutendsten Filmemacher des 20. Jahrhunderts.

In seinem Dokumentarfilm „Buñuel: Filmemacher des Surrealismus“ gewährt Javier Espada einen Einblick in den Werdegang des spanischstämmigen mexikanischen Regisseurs seine Entwicklung und sein Werk, das nicht nur das Kino, sondern die gesamte Kunstwelt maßgeblich beinflusst und für immer verändert hat.

Neue Visionen startet „Buñuel: Filmemacher des Surrealismus“ am 10. Oktober in den deutschen Kinos.

In the 1980s, Peter Brook’s adaptation of The Mahabharata enchanted audiences on stage and screen. As Brook’s son presents a restored print at the Venice film festival, he and his team discuss the work’s extraordinary journey

When Antonin Stahly was nine years old, his mother took him to the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris to see a production of the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata, which translates loosely as “the great story of mankind”. More than 20 actors from 16 countries performed on a stage steeped in red earth and scarred by a water-filled trench; fire also played a leading role. Directed by Peter Brook, whom the RSC founder Peter Hall called “the greatest innovator of his generation”, and adapted by Luis Buñuel’s former co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière, this spectacular Mahabharata weighed in at nine hours, plus intervals. Even at that length, it represented a massive compression of its source text,...

With the third installment of their Danza Macabra series, the fine, twisted folks at Severin Films shift focus from the boot of Italy to the Iberian peninsula. This collection spotlights four fascinating Spanish examples of the sort of moody gothic filmmaking that Italian directors like Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti, not to mention Hammer Films in Britain, helped to popularize for international markets.

Rife with reptilian monsters, vampires, zombified Knights Templar, and even a cameo from Frankenstein and his misbegotten creation, these films vary considerably in tone and approach, ranging from rambling shaggy-dog tales to almost esoteric fables. They also differ in how far they’re willing to go with their respective lashings of sex and violence, growing bolder as the restrictions of the Franco regime lifted after the dictator’s passing in 1975.

Writer-director Miguel Madrid’s schizoid Necrophagous, from 1971, divides its time between two principal storylines that barely cohere in the end.

Known primarily as a chronicler of urban crime and corruption with noirs like In the Palm of Your Hand, The Other One, and Night Falls, Mexican director Roberto Gavaldón proved himself equally adept at tackling another popular national genre of the era, the rural melodrama, with 1952’s Soledad’s Shawl. Following a skilled doctor, Alberto Robles (Arturo de Córdova), who yearns to leave the small, remote town he works in and return to Mexico City for an important research job, Gavaldón’s film is a superb exploration of the dichotomies between urban and rural, science and superstition, and body and soul.

While the presence of Catholic morality is pervasive throughout, the film resists such trite tropes like the sinful city man learning the values of religion or coming to love the simple charms and beauty of the countryside. This rural region is seen instead as a place of grinding poverty,...

Ab August bietet das Kino filmkunst 66 jeden Sonntag ausgewählte Werke der Meister der Filmkunst der 1920er bis 1960er Jahre.

Das Kino Filmkunst 66 präsentiert ab August sonntags „Frühe Meister der Filmkunst“ (Credit: filmkunst 66)

Kuratiert von Theaterleiter Klaus Stawecki bietet das Kino filmkunst 66 ab August sonntags ausgewählte Werke der frühen Meister der Filmkunst aus den 1920er bis 1960er Jahren. Wie das Kino heute mitteilt, wolle man damit „sowohl erfahrenen CineastInnen (die viele bedeutende Filme lange nicht mehr im Kino sehen konnten) als auch interessierten Newcomern eine Möglichkeit zu bieten, sich Beispiele der Filmgeschichte auf der Leinwand anzusehen“.

Beim Angebot wolle man sich am Alphabet nach den Nachnamen der jeweiligen Meister orientieren, heißt es in der Mitteilung weiter. Und so macht am 4. August Michelangelo Antonionis „Die mit der Liebe spielen“ den Auftakt zu der Filmreihe. Am 11. und 18. August folgen mit „Liebe 1962“ und „Blow Up“ zwei weitere Filme von Michelangelo Antonioni. Am 25. August,...

Blind and paralyzed, Pierre sits in his well-appointed Paris apartment attended by Séverine, the bored housewife at the heart of Luis Buñuel’s 1967 classic film Belle du Jour. It is arguably Catherine Deneuve’s best movie and helped establish the career of the French star, who went on to become the country’s leading lady for decades. In the scene, Deneuve wears a little black dress, stylish with its rounded white collar and cuffs. It was designed by Yves Saint Laurent, his iteration of Coco Chanel’s game-changing design that became a staple of women’s fashion. You can now see the dress firsthand in California at Yves Saint Laurent: Line and Expression, on view at Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa through Oct. 27.

“They became friends immediately,” notes Gaël Mamine, co-curator of the show that began at Marrakech’s Musée Yves Saint Laurent. “In her movies, he...

“I thought about The Exterminating Angel,” Lucy Kerr says over coffee as she describes the origins of Family Portrait, her hypnotic feature debut. Indeed, the film’s central conceit hews closely to Luis Buñuel’s 1962 satire, but instead of posh partygoers being inexplicably stuck in a single room, an extended Texas family is unable to get everyone to gather for the titular photo. In particular, Katie’s (Deragh Campbell) pleas for everyone to assemble are frustratingly ignored or otherwise thwarted, especially when the family matriarch (Silvana Jakich) is suddenly nowhere to be found. Wandering around the vast property in search of her […]

The post “Suspense Comes From Air Conditioning”: Lucy Kerr on Family Portrait first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“I thought about The Exterminating Angel,” Lucy Kerr says over coffee as she describes the origins of Family Portrait, her hypnotic feature debut. Indeed, the film’s central conceit hews closely to Luis Buñuel’s 1962 satire, but instead of posh partygoers being inexplicably stuck in a single room, an extended Texas family is unable to get everyone to gather for the titular photo. In particular, Katie’s (Deragh Campbell) pleas for everyone to assemble are frustratingly ignored or otherwise thwarted, especially when the family matriarch (Silvana Jakich) is suddenly nowhere to be found. Wandering around the vast property in search of her […]

The post “Suspense Comes From Air Conditioning”: Lucy Kerr on Family Portrait first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Since taking over in 2022, Nifff director Pierre-Yves Walder has made the festival’s socially tinged retrospective program a hallmark of his tenure. Rounding out a so-called trilogy that started with queer representation then followed with a gender focus that put the femme fatale and scream queen under the spotlight, this year’s retrospective will tackle class conflict in cheeky terms, putting the screws to those swells with a 20 film program titled Eat the Rich.

“Genre cinema has always treated questions of predation, exploitation and everyday brutality with such complexity,” says Walder, “which makes it so interesting to how this theme evolves over the course of film history.”

The far-ranging program tackles nearly a century worth of upper-class perfidy, beginning with Yakov Protazanov’s early-Soviet sci-fi “Aelita” from 1924 and running through to Jenna Cato Bass’ South African servitude creeper “Good Madam” from 2021. In between are landmarks like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope...

On the surface, making a piece of genre cinema about a serious subject could seem distancing. By not addressing the issue in the most realistic manner it could come across like you care more about exciting the audience with cinematic tropes than exploring the truth of a situation. But using genre as a vessel to confront major issues can actually be more thought-provoking because cinema fundamentally isn’t real life, it’s strange and fantastical and, ultimately, more akin to the dreamstate. Liam Pinheiro-Rogers shows this with London’s Forgotten, his eerie fantasy drama about the cyclical nature of knife crime. Pinheiro-Rogers brings a ghostly edge to his spin on the knife crime drama, telling the story of a young man who wanders London’s urban streets which have played host to the countless stories of knife crime victims. It’s an incredibly compelling piece of work and we’re...

Simon has a strong twitch that drives him to shake his head, meaninglessly. He sometimes dribbles. The way he looks out at the world from under his brows, especially when people are talking to him, suggests he can’t quite keep up with what they’re saying. When he meets a group of young people from a local daycare center for the intellectually disabled, he naturally falls in with them. He befriends Pehuen Pedre (playing a version of himself) on the top of a mountain, where the group has walked and gotten into difficulties in high winds. When they all manage to get down and back on the bus, Simon gets on board with them. This is where he belongs.

Simon of the Mountain, Argentinian director Federico Luis’ moving, puzzling and wholly original debut feature, which won the top prize at Critics’ Week in Cannes, is a callback to Luis Bunuel...

Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel takes some big swings with his first feature Armand, not all of which connect, but the ambition and risk-taking are largely impressive.

A single-setting drama that unfolds in an echo-filled elementary school after hours, it stars Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World) as local celebrity Elisabeth, the mother of never-met Armand, a first-grade boy who is accused by his classmate Jon, also never seen, of sexual abuse.

When the boys’ teacher and key school staffers call a meeting with parents to decide the next steps, Elisabeth clashes with Jon’s parents, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit), although not all is as it seems. The basic setup recalls, among other stories about accusations, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of stage play Carnage, but Armand gets much weirder as it goes on, with choreographed dance sequences and melodramatic revelations that feel contrived and...

The Face of An(other): Luis Complicates Identity Politics

Although it’s playing quite purposefully with various ambiguities and motifs, Federico Luis’ directorial debut Simon de la montaña (Simon of the Mountain) is most successful at obscuring the usual cliches of identity exploration. Its title recalls Luis Bunuel’s religious themed 1965 short film “Simon of the Desert,” and there are some comparable allusions to temptation and forsakenness in some of the minor metaphorical moments explored. But Luis instead aims to challenge perceptions of what’s culturally acceptable in not only the crafting of an identity, but also the construction of community through an inverse scenario, i.e.,…...

The Art of Saying Nothing: Dupieux Deconstructs Cinema

Had Luis Bunuel approached conveying the reality of cinema produced by artificial intelligence, there may have been some similarities with what Quentin Dupieux is doing in his latest feature, Le Deuxième Acte (The Second Act). Of course, ironically, it is a film which doesn’t technically feature anything resembling a second act, and much like Dupieux’s previous films, actively disrupts notions of coherence or linear expectation. Such is the generally the blessing and curse of the perennial Dupieux, who seems to operating at the same frantic pace of someone like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, only with less of a success rate considering his strict adherence to an absurdism which suggests his films are probably more entertaining for those who made them than an audience trying to grasp at his intentions.…...

A little bit of sex is always appreciated in movies and TV shows and a lot of it also doesn’t go unnoticed I am looking at you Fifty Shades of Grey and its half-a-billion-dollar box office earnings. If you also love steamy movies and shows then this article is for you as we are here to list the most erotic films and TV shows you can find on Max (formerly known as HBO Max), where you will find most of the HBO shows and Warner Bros. movies. So, here are the most steamiest movies and TV shows you should watch on Max.

Euphoria (TV Series) Credit – HBO

Euphoria is a teen drama series created by Sam Levinson. Based on an Israeli miniseries of the same name by Ron Leshem and Daphna Levin, the HBO series follows the story of a troubled 17-year-old drug-addicted girl Rue, and her group of...

On the indie side of filmmaking life, Sean Price Williams has seen it all. He’s worked with the Safdies, Alex Ross Perry, Nathan Silver, Robert Green, and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and often more than once. He’s the premier chronicler of New York City independent movies behind the camera, typically shooting on celluloid, and bringing surreal, gritty poetry to character-driven stories that feel on the ground like portraits of versions of ourselves.

One of the most unabashedly movie-loving cinematographers working today, Williams last year moved to directing for the sprawling, scratchy-edged tale of East Coast youth, “The Sweet East,” which remains in theaters and features stars like Jacob Elordi, Simon Rex, Jeremy O. Harris, and Ayo Edebiri.

But even more recently than that directorial debut, he released a “1000 Movies” book via Metrograph Editions, a simple, unadorned paperback that offers, rather than commentary, pages listing his favorite essential films and...

Music Box Films has acquired U.S. distribution rights to “Daaaaaalí!,” the latest film by Quentin Dupieux whose upcoming movie “The Second Act” will world premiere on opening night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

A comedic and unpredictable tribute to Salvador Dalí, “Daaaaaalí!” premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival, followed by screenings at the BFI London Film Festival and Rotterdam.

In “Daaaaaalí!,” a French journalist repeatedly meets Dalí to begin an interview for a documentary film project that never starts shooting. Anaïs Demoustier stars as a journalist attempting to pin down the eccentric and elusive Salvador Dalí, who is played by five different actors, Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï, and Didier Flamand.

Music Box Films will release “Daaaaaalí!” theatrically later this year with a home entertainment release to follow.

“We were thoroughly charmed by the playful, antic spirit of Quentin Dupieux’s film,...

Quentin Dupieux's Yannick is now showing exclusively on Mubi from April 5, 2024.Yannick.Ever since he dogged a sentient tire on a killing spree in Rubber (2010), musician-turned-filmmaker Quentin Dupieux has been distilling a singular form of gonzo. The films he’s crafted—a body of work swelling at the speed of Hong Sang-soo, with six features released since 2019—all belie their modest means. Rarely stretching longer than eighty minutes, they’ve followed a number of deranged characters, which have recently included a man reprogrammed as a killing machine by his leather jacket; a pig-sized fly and the two bums who try to make a pet out of it; a gang of Power Rangers–type avengers armed with tobacco smoke’s chemical constituents, and a middle-aged couple who discovers a time-travel portal in their basement. Dupieux—who routinely writes, shoots, directs, and edits his own films—likes to work with a...

Med Hondo’s 1979 musical extravaganza West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty is a satirical skewering of the legacy of French imperialism in the West Indies and beyond. From the outset, it defies categorization through its distinct sense of free association as it leaps from one colorful image to the next, often shunning context along the way. Throughout Hondo’s film, the xenophobic and racist rhetoric of haughty, predominately white French aristocrats, bureaucrats, and citizens is combatted, challenged, or lampooned by various African figures. Some are slaves, some are revolutionaries, while some are simply power hungry. The result is a deliriously iconoclastic anti-colonialist work that’s worthy of the finest films from roughly the same period by Ousmane Sembene and Dijbril Diop Mambéty.

Adapted by Hondo and Daniel Boukman from the latter’s novel Les Negriers, West Indies traces an epic history of colonial oppression and enslavement in the West Indies,...

Netflix is bringing 1974 back to theaters thanks to rare archival prints, restorations, and select 35mm screenings of the curated “Milestone Movies” streaming collection.

The streaming platform debuts a slew of classic films across its trio of theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. The rarely screened archival prints for Martin Scorsese’s “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and John Cassavetes’ “A Woman Under the Influence” are among the selected titles, as well as the premiere of the Dcp restoration of iconic Blaxploitation film “Foxy Brown” starring Pam Grier.

The screening series marks the 50th anniversaries of the 1974 films, which were unveiled as part of Netflix’s inaugural (and Criterion Channel-esque) curation channel “Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection,” which was unveiled in January 2024. Fifteen films will screen at the Paris Theater in New York from March 22 through 28, as 12 films screen at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles from March 11 through...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Denis Villeneuve’s work also brings the director’s programming choices, among them films by Godard, Resnais, Cassavetes, and Wong Kar-wai.

Roxy Cinema

Bob Fosse’s Star 80, The Piano Teacher, The Pillow Book, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and End of Night all play on 35mm.

Anthology Film Archives

As retrospective of Haitian cinema continues, films by Hollis Frampton and Ernie Gehr play Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Film Forum

“Sapph-o-rama” continues with films by Nicholas Ray, Jonathan Demme, Lizzie Borden, and more; a 4K restoration of Pandora’s Box has begun a run; a print of The Third Man continues, while the Harold Lloyd film Hot Water shows on 35mm this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Scorsese, Elaine May, Jonathan Demme, and Gus Van Sant...

Ahead of touching down at the Berlin Film Festival, Black Bear manager Philip Westgren shared with THR about why the shutdown Templehof airport is a must-see stop and where you can escape the festival frenzy for a nice steam.

What’s your state of mind heading into the European Film Market?

I like this year’s lineup which, next to more established names, contains a number of younger global filmmakers with interesting looking films. Strong voices will always find a way to break through and Berlin is still one of the places where that magic happens.

What’s your favorite, only-in-Berlin moment from festivals/markets past?

Running into Michael Barker at the Berlin airport the day after I began working with [The Teacher’s Lounge director] Ilker Çatak. When I brought up Ilker and his film The Teachers’ Lounge, Michael’s eyes knowingly lit up and he said, “Now there’s a director to get into business with.

Ja Bayona’s Society Of The Snow was the big winner at Spain’s Goya awards on Saturday night (February 10), scooping 12 prizes including best film and director to become the third-most garlanded film in Goya history.

Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall, was named best European film, and Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams won the prizes for best adapted screenplay and feature animation.

20,000 Species Of Bees, the feature debut of Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, received three Goyas for best new director and original screenplay for Solaguren, and best supporting actress for Ane Gabarain. The 15 nominations for Bees were the...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Nicholas Ray, Ulrike Ottinger, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist and The Third Man on 35mm continue; A Hard Day’s Night plays on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Cassavetes, Jonathan Demme, and more; The Gods of Times Square and a print of Prince’s vastly underrated Under the Cherry Moon both play on Sunday.

Metrograph

The series “Dreamlike Visions” puts modern master Alain Gomis front-and-center.

Roxy Cinema

Carpenter’s Christine, Almodóvar’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and Secretary all play on 35mm.

Museum of Modern Art

As the massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films continues, a retrospective of Finnish filmmaker Ilkka Järvi-Laturi begins.

IFC Center

A Dario Argento series continues; Audition, Basket Case 3,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive run of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican films begins; “To Save and Project,” continues.

Film at Lincoln Center

“Never Look Away: Serge Daney’s Radical 1970s” brings films by Tati, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray (x2), Godard, Straub-Huillet, Pasolini, and more.

Film Forum

“Sapph-o-rama” highlights lesbian cinema with films by Chantal Akerman, Lizzie Borden, Ulrike Ottinger, Yvonne Rainer, Celine Sciamma, and more; a 4K restoration of The Pianist, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and The Third Man continue; a print of Calamity Jane plays on Sunday.

IFC Center

As Francis Ford Coppola’s latest recut, One from the Heart: Reprise, continues, Bertrand Bonello’s masterpiece Coma gets a New York premiere and a Dario Argento series begins; Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar plays late.

Roxy Cinema

Cronenberg’s Crash and Keith McNally...

Marco Bellocchio has ruffled some feathers over the years – starting with his feature debut “Fists in the Pocket.”

“I do remember that people were shocked about me making a film, in Italy, about a son killing his mother. They were surprised and I don’t know why. I thought it was a good idea – from a dramatic point of view,” he said at International Film Festival Rotterdam during a talk with festival director Vanja Kaludjercic.

While his colleague Bernardo Bertolucci found himself in even bigger trouble – “They wanted to burn the negative of ‘The Last Tango in Paris,’ which was absurd! I had issues, but not as big as this one” – “Fists in the Pocket” still angered many. Including Luis Buñuel.

“He is perceived as this great surrealist, a revolutionary, but he was a conservative moralist. He couldn’t believe this angry young man was so bitter against his mother.

Mubi has unveiled their February 2024 lineup, featuring Roy Andersson’s little-seen 1991 short World of Glory, Nicole Holofcener’s Lovely & Amazing starring Catherine Keener with an early Jake Gyllenhaal performance, and special Black History Month selections: Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer, Kasi Lemmon’s Eve’s Bayou, Carl Franklin’s One False Move, and more.

Check out the lineup below, including recently added January titles, and get 30 days free here.

Just-Added

American Movie, directed by Christopher Smith | Festival Focus: Sundance

Pieces of April, directed by Peter Hedges | Festival Focus: Sundance

The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez | Festival Focus: Sundance

But I’m a Cheerleader, directed by Jamie Babbit | Festival Focus: Sundance

Secretary, directed by Steven Shainberg | Festival Focus: Sundance

Medicine for Melancholy directed by Barry Jenkins | First Films First

Antiviral, directed by Brandon Cronenberg | First Films First

Shithouse, directed by Cooper Raiff | First Films First

Age of Panic,...

February––particularly its third week––is all about romance. Accordingly the Criterion Channel got creative with their monthly programming and, in a few weeks, will debut Interdimensional Romance, a series of films wherein “passion conquers time and space, age and memory, and even death and the afterlife.” For every title you might’ve guessed there’s a wilder companion: Alan Rudolph’s Made In Heaven, Soderbergh’s remake, and Resnais’ Love Unto Death. Mostly I’m excited to revisit Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, a likely essential viewing before Megalopolis.

February also marks Black History Month, and Criterion’s series will include work by Shirley Clarke (also subject of a standalone series), Garrett Bradley, Cheryl Dunye, and Julie Dash, while movies by Sirk, Minnelli, King Vidor, and Lang play in “Gothic Noir.” Greta Gerwig gets an “Adventures in Moviegoing” and can be seen in Mary Bronstein’s Yeast,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSDry Leaf.On Criterion’s Daily, David Hudson has shared a useful roundup of films that might be expected to premiere during 2024. Among the inclusions are: Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho’s first film since Parasite (2019); It’s Not Me, Leos Carax’s latest collaboration with Denis Lavant; and Dry Leaf, the enticing-sounding new film by Alexandre Koberidze (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? [2021]), which is said to be about “a photographer who shoots soccer stadiums [who] goes missing.”A list of international filmmakers including Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pedro Costa, Radu Jude, Ira Sachs, Claire Denis, and Abderrahmane Sissako have signed a letter, published during the holiday season in the French newspaper Libération, demanding (as translated by the Film Stage) “an immediate end to the bombings on Gaza,...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSBreak no.1 & Break no.2..The lineups for select sections of the 2024 editions of the Berlinale and International Film Festival Rotterdam have been unveiled, with films from Panorama, Forum, Forum Expanded, Generation, and Berlinale Special announced for the former, and the Tiger and Big Screen competitions at the latter. In Berlin, so far, we are excited by the prospect of new films by Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) and Jérémy Clapin (I Lost My Body), whereas in Rotterdam, we have our eye on new work by Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich and Lei Lei. As the year comes to a close, the Best of 2023 lists keep coming. Sight & Sound shared the seventh edition of their always-interesting poll of the best video essays of the year,...