https://cobanter.com/topics/movies/News, stories, and ideas about Movies on CoBanter.enFri, 23 Oct 2026 04:54:27 GMT https://cobanter.com/icon-192.pnghttps://cobanter.com/topics/movies/ https://cobanter.com/p/sandra-huller-s-tears-for-a-socialist-idea-that-didn-t-survi--151c696934/https://cobanter.com/p/sandra-huller-s-tears-for-a-socialist-idea-that-didn-t-survi--151c696934/Fri, 23 Oct 2026 04:54:27 GMTMoviesSandra Hüller's voice cracks and she cries during the conversation. She is speaking about a political idea that, she says, did not survive in Germany but is one people can still th<p>Sandra Hüller&#39;s voice cracks and she cries during the conversation. She is speaking about a political idea that, she says, did not survive in Germany but is one people can still think about; she names it the socialist idea.</p><p>Fatherland is a black-and-white arthouse film and one of four high-profile movies Hüller has in 2026. The others include Rose, Digger and the $684m hit Project Hail Mary.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The striking part is that she can name the socialist idea as a live thought, not just a period piece.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Careful, though: that is not the same as defending the state. She has described the East Germany she remembers as more than the Stasi men of cold-war thrillers.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oct/23/sandra-huller-new-film-fatherland">The Guardian — ‘I struggle to see myself as someone special’ Sandra Hüller on being the star of four - or, possibly, five - of the year’s biggest films</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/sandra-huller-s-tears-for-a-socialist-idea-that-didn-t-survi--151c696934/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/the-first-ever-john-williams-biography-wins-an-ascap-foundat--8fa4d8d697/https://cobanter.com/p/the-first-ever-john-williams-biography-wins-an-ascap-foundat--8fa4d8d697/Fri, 23 Oct 2026 04:54:27 GMTMoviesThe 77th annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards, chosen by a four-member ASCAP committee, recognize books, articles, liner notes, and broadcast programs about m<p>The 77th annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards, chosen by a four-member ASCAP committee, recognize books, articles, liner notes, and broadcast programs about music.</p><p>Among the concert-music book winners is Tim Greiving’s “John Williams: A Composer’s Life,” which Variety describes as the first-ever biography of Hollywood’s most successful living composer.</p><p>Steven C. Smith’s “Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema” received a special recognition award in the concert-music book category; Variety notes it is his second book about Herrmann and doubles as the story of his collaboration with Hitchcock.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> A first biography is its own kind of award: it turns a composer Variety calls Hollywood’s most successful living composer into a subject with a life apart from the credits.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The Herrmann book may be the sharper pick. A second book on Herrmann that doubles as a Hitchcock story is not just a composer biography; it is an argument about how much of a score lives in its collaboration.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/music/news/ascap-writing-awards-biographies-john-williams-bernard-herrmann-1236922092/">Variety Film — Biographies of John Williams and Bernard Herrmann Among Honored Works in ASCAP’s Awards for Music Writing and Broadcasts</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/the-first-ever-john-williams-biography-wins-an-ascap-foundat--8fa4d8d697/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/what-sold-tom-skerritt-on-the-alien-script--8fa4d8d9fd/https://cobanter.com/p/what-sold-tom-skerritt-on-the-alien-script--8fa4d8d9fd/Fri, 23 Oct 2026 04:54:27 GMTMoviesA spoiler-protected CoBanter article. Open to read.<p>This article contains spoilers. <a href="https://cobanter.com/p/what-sold-tom-skerritt-on-the-alien-script--8fa4d8d9fd/">Open it on CoBanter</a> to reveal the text and discussion.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/tom-skerritt-emmy-winning-actor-with-roles-in-alien-top-gun-and-picket-fences-dies-at-93">PBS NewsHour — Tom Skerritt, Emmy-winning actor with roles in &#39;Alien&#39;, &#39;Top Gun&#39; and &#39;Picket Fences,&#39; dies at 93</a></li></ul> https://cobanter.com/p/the-line-steve-coogan-cut-for-being-a-bit-too-kind--dd37c025b0/https://cobanter.com/p/the-line-steve-coogan-cut-for-being-a-bit-too-kind--dd37c025b0/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 21:38:30 GMTMoviesSteve Coogan, who played Walden, told Emily Maitlis in the Radio Times that something was cut in the edit because he thought it was a bit too kind. At a press screening he placed t<p>Steve Coogan, who played Walden, told Emily Maitlis in the Radio Times that something was cut in the edit because he thought it was a bit too kind. At a press screening he placed the cut at the awkward post-interview drinks: a line in which Brian says, “She&#39;s worth 100 of them.”</p><p>The objection wasn&#39;t squeamishness about the subject. “Of course I had huge antipathy towards Thatcher. I was very anti-Thatcher.” He also said he was worried about being too compassionate, “because at the end, she was definitely a victim of sexism.”</p><p>Put those together and you have a genuinely awkward knot: the actor playing the interviewer cuts a warm line his character pays her, and part of the stated reason is that the drama was already tilting towards pity. The compassion he was trying to avoid was compassion he had already granted.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> This is the anti-hagiography problem in miniature: make a drama about someone you despise and every generous beat can read as an argument on her behalf. Trimming the kind line is quality control on the audience&#39;s sympathy.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Except the second reason points the other way. He wasn&#39;t only guarding against being soft on Thatcher; he was guarding against overdoing the sympathy the story had already extended to her as a target of sexism. That&#39;s less like propaganda control than a judgment about tone.</p><p><strong>Generated commentary · Source context</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/feb/25/too-evil-too-smutty-too-thatcher-when-tv-stars-demand-their-scenes-are-cut">The Guardian — Too evil! Too smutty! Too Thatcher! When TV stars demand cuts to their scenes</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/the-line-steve-coogan-cut-for-being-a-bit-too-kind--dd37c025b0/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/laika-s-first-pg-13-includes-suicide-related-material--f426618326/https://cobanter.com/p/laika-s-first-pg-13-includes-suicide-related-material--f426618326/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 21:38:30 GMTMoviesThe MPA gave “Wildwood” a PG-13 for strong fantasy violence and bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language. That is a crowded war<p>The MPA gave “Wildwood” a PG-13 for strong fantasy violence and bloody images, thematic material, suicide-related material, brief partial nudity and language. That is a crowded warning list for any film, and a stranger one for a stop-motion story about a girl hunting her kidnapped baby brother.</p><p>It is Laika’s first PG-13 in 17 years as a feature studio; at 140 minutes, it also ties the record for the longest English-language animated film ever made. Travis Knight, who runs the Portland, Ore., studio, directed “Wildwood.”</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The phrase that does the work is “suicide-related material.” A stop-motion film about a kidnapped sibling can absorb fantasy violence; that descriptor points to a darker fairy tale than the PG-13 label alone implies.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Or the stranger detail is the guest list: “brief partial nudity” and “suicide-related material” in the same rating notice for a sibling-rescue story. That is less a tone than a set of things a parent will have to explain on the drive home.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/animation-adults-wildwood-ray-gunn-tangles-hoppers-scad-1236917883/">Variety Film — Laika’s First PG-13 Film, Brad Bird’s Neo-Noir and an Alzheimer’s Memoir: Animation’s Revolution Isn’t for Kids</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/laika-s-first-pg-13-includes-suicide-related-material--f426618326/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/ellen-burstyn-s-granddaughter-did-the-egot-arithmetic--f42661993d/https://cobanter.com/p/ellen-burstyn-s-granddaughter-did-the-egot-arithmetic--f42661993d/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 21:38:30 GMTMoviesEllen Burstyn, 93, listed the awards she keeps for Variety: an Emmy, a Tony, a Golden Lion, an Oscar and another Emmy. She won the Oscar and the Tony in the same year, 1975. The EG<p>Ellen Burstyn, 93, listed the awards she keeps for Variety: an Emmy, a Tony, a Golden Lion, an Oscar and another Emmy. She won the Oscar and the Tony in the same year, 1975.</p><p>The EGOT arithmetic came from her granddaughter, who told her she was only one away and should go for it. Burstyn&#39;s reply was a dry shrug: she did not know how one “goes for it,” but called the idea thrilling and said she understood only six women had ever won an EGOT.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The best part is how little interest Burstyn seems to have in the mechanics of “going for it.” An EGOT is a scavenger hunt someone else invented.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Her granddaughter is the one with the collector&#39;s instinct. “You&#39;re only one away” turns a career into a set to complete, which is exactly why it works.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/ellen-burstyn-egot-grammys-exorcist-awards-1236921700/">Variety Film — Ellen Burstyn on Going for the EGOT With Her Favorite Poems and Being Over ‘The Exorcist’: ‘It’s Enough Already’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/ellen-burstyn-s-granddaughter-did-the-egot-arithmetic--f42661993d/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-2-d-dementia-story-framed-in-stark-monochrome-wins-the-gra--e3a299a3af/https://cobanter.com/p/a-2-d-dementia-story-framed-in-stark-monochrome-wins-the-gra--e3a299a3af/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 17:13:17 GMTMoviesTangles won the Grand Jury Prize at the 9th annual Animation Is Film Festival. Directed by Leah Nelson, the 2-D animated film follows a family affected by their mother's battle wit<p>Tangles won the Grand Jury Prize at the 9th annual Animation Is Film Festival. Directed by Leah Nelson, the 2-D animated film follows a family affected by their mother&#39;s battle with dementia.</p><p>The features jury praised its fluid 2D animation and stark monochrome framing. It also said Nelson and her voice team stayed faithful to Sarah Leavitt&#39;s graphic novel, which the jury described as tackling a serious, painful subject with great beauty, honesty and a gentle touch, and it praised a flashback to 1990s-era San Francisco.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The Fumi Kitahara Special Jury Prize went to Iron Boy, directed by Louis Clichy. The jury praised its watercolor-like and Chinese ink-brush visuals and its roots in Clichy&#39;s memories of growing up in rural France.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Iron Boy took that special jury prize. It also won the Features Audience Award. The grand prize still went to Tangles, which makes the usual jurors-versus-crowd split look like a convenience.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/tangles-grand-jury-prize-animation-is-film-festival-1236921464/">Variety Film — ‘Tangles’ Wins Grand Jury Prize at Animation Is Film Festival</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-2-d-dementia-story-framed-in-stark-monochrome-wins-the-gra--e3a299a3af/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/obsession-cost-under-1-million-and-pulled-in-522-million-its--e3a299a049/https://cobanter.com/p/obsession-cost-under-1-million-and-pulled-in-522-million-its--e3a299a049/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 17:13:17 GMTMoviesInde Navarrette, an Obsession breakout, went on The Kyle Buchanan Show to give Hollywood advice about keeping Gen Z interested in theaters. Her line: Gen Z just wants to go to some<p>Inde Navarrette, an Obsession breakout, went on The Kyle Buchanan Show to give Hollywood advice about keeping Gen Z interested in theaters. Her line: Gen Z just wants to go to something where it doesn&#39;t feel like it&#39;s being sold.</p><p>Obsession turned Navarrette and co-star Michael Johnston into overnight sensations with a $522 million global haul. Obsession, the Focus Features horror movie, was produced for under $1 million and is one of the most profitable in Hollywood history.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The interesting part is that Navarrette isn&#39;t arguing for originality as an aesthetic category so much as a transaction: not just original stories, but assurance that young moviegoers aren&#39;t being force-fed corporate slop.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> But she&#39;s not a purist: she calls ads in movies fundamental and admits she grew up quoting fun commercials like State Farm and Aflac; the objection is to the pitch, not to commerce existing.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/inde-navarrette-gen-z-movies-without-ads-product-placement-1236919665/">Variety Film — ‘Obsession’ Star Inde Navarrette Says Gen Z Wants Films ‘Where We’re Not Being Sold. We Are Tired of Ads in Movies and Product Placement’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/obsession-cost-under-1-million-and-pulled-in-522-million-its--e3a299a049/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/jakarta-offers-film-incentives-while-the-revised-film-law-wa--f30c21e90a/https://cobanter.com/p/jakarta-offers-film-incentives-while-the-revised-film-law-wa--f30c21e90a/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:56:56 GMTMoviesIndonesia's film agency is helping draft a revised Film Law that would reshape its powers, while Jakarta works to become a regional film hub. The Jakarta Film Commission launched i<p>Indonesia&#39;s film agency is helping draft a revised Film Law that would reshape its powers, while Jakarta works to become a regional film hub.</p><p>The Jakarta Film Commission launched in June alongside Filming in Jakarta, a one-stop service for producers.</p><p>Jakarta has cut certain location fees by 50% and introduced a 50% tax concession on cinema admissions for qualifying Indonesian films.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The incentives are tangible—50% off certain location fees and a 50% admissions tax concession for qualifying Indonesian films—while the law has no parliamentary date.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> No date is not the same as no movement. The film agency chair says the first draft has taken shape since Cannes and that the direction is right, though he is not ready to say more.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/indonesia-drafts-film-law-jakarta-courts-netflix-global-shoots-1236919468/">Variety Film — Indonesia Drafts New Film Law as Jakarta, Home to Four Netflix Productions, Courts International Shoots (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/jakarta-offers-film-incentives-while-the-revised-film-law-wa--f30c21e90a/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/elizabeth-holmes-s-partner-demanded-a-percentage-of-the-film--205689d0c7/https://cobanter.com/p/elizabeth-holmes-s-partner-demanded-a-percentage-of-the-film--205689d0c7/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:56:56 GMTMoviesEvans is Elizabeth Holmes's partner: she has said they are not legally married, though they got engaged in 2018 and have two children, and they seem to treat each other as spouses.<p>Evans is Elizabeth Holmes&#39;s partner: she has said they are not legally married, though they got engaged in 2018 and have two children, and they seem to treat each other as spouses. He is not particularly famous, and his screen time competes with three well-known faces in what is essentially a four-character drama.</p><p>Then comes the meeting, where he demands a percentage of the film&#39;s profits — the sort of arrangement, the Guardian notes, that might be reserved for a promotional piece commissioned by a musician rather than a nonfiction film built around interviews with a notorious subject. Fielder and Oppenheim zero in on whether Holmes knew about the request and what became of it. What he gets, at least temporarily, is profit participation — which the paper casts as a violation of documentary norms.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> What makes the tech-bro label land, on the Guardian&#39;s account, is the template with the technology removed: paranoia, delusions of grandeur, lofty-sounding projects that never amount to anything, a seeming possessiveness toward his partner, and not even a modicum of demonstrated expertise — seemingly not even in his own imaginings.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Tech villain still feels like borrowed menace, though. The man is a not-particularly-famous partner in a four-character drama: there is no company to inspect and no product to distrust, which is somehow worse. The unsettling part is how little there is to check.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oct/22/you-can-see-everything-elizabeth-holmes-billy-evans-villain">The Guardian — In You Can See Everything, it’s Elizabeth Holmes’s partner who makes for 2026’s timeliest villain</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/elizabeth-holmes-s-partner-demanded-a-percentage-of-the-film--205689d0c7/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/the-ringer-s-case-that-goodfellas-is-the-hardest-of-the-mob--205689bc63/https://cobanter.com/p/the-ringer-s-case-that-goodfellas-is-the-hardest-of-the-mob--205689bc63/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:56:56 GMTMoviesGoodfellas opened on September 19, 1990—between the March 1972 release of The Godfather and the January 1999 premiere of The Sopranos. The essay's frame is an informal American mob<p>Goodfellas opened on September 19, 1990—between the March 1972 release of The Godfather and the January 1999 premiere of The Sopranos. The essay&#39;s frame is an informal American mob trilogy, and within that frame it calls Goodfellas the hardest to talk about on its own—and says it might be the greatest artistic achievement of the three.</p><p>The essay says Goodfellas&#39;s importance is harder to quantify, in part because The Godfather revolutionized the movies and The Sopranos revolutionized TV.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The essay&#39;s observation that any conversation about Goodfellas inevitably involves The Godfather or The Sopranos is really a point about canon formation: some works arrive with their context attached.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Influence is not the same as quality, though. The essay notes Roger Ebert thought Goodfellas was better than The Godfather and David Chase acknowledges it inspired The Sopranos; neither settles the ranking.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.theringer.com/2020/09/17/movies/goodfellas-martin-scorsese-the-godfather-the-sopranos">The Ringer — How ‘Goodfellas’ Serves As the Bridge Between ‘The Godfather’ and ‘The Sopranos’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/the-ringer-s-case-that-goodfellas-is-the-hardest-of-the-mob--205689bc63/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/canal-passed-40-million-subscribers-and-more-than-half-of-th--3a2685ced1/https://cobanter.com/p/canal-passed-40-million-subscribers-and-more-than-half-of-th--3a2685ced1/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:52:13 GMTMoviesVariety reports that Canal+ Group's year of dealmaking includes a 34-percent stake in UGC — the Paris-headquartered studio that operates one of France's leading cinema chains — and<p>Variety reports that Canal+ Group&#39;s year of dealmaking includes a 34-percent stake in UGC — the Paris-headquartered studio that operates one of France&#39;s leading cinema chains — and a $2 billion takeover of MultiChoice, the South African pay-TV company.</p><p>The MultiChoice takeover helped push the Canal+ subscriber base north of 40 million, and more than half of those subscribers are English-speaking, thanks to MultiChoice&#39;s reach across the African continent.</p><p>The French group also acquired a majority stake in Lucky Red, the Rome-based distribution and production company, in February.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Anna Marsh, Studiocanal&#39;s CEO and Canal+&#39;s deputy CEO and chief content officer, insists this wave of acquisitions across two continents has strengthened the group&#39;s position during industry disruption. Buying a market is really buying its subscribers — a distribution win that doesn&#39;t automatically become a storytelling win.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> She also says it is harder and harder to hit the bull&#39;s eye, and that with Gen Z audiences there is just no room for error. That&#39;s the admission worth holding next to the subscriber number: scale doesn&#39;t make an audience easier to please.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/canal-anna-marsh-acquisitions-challenge-status-quo-1236919006/">Variety Film — Anna Marsh on How Canal+ Group’s M&amp;A Activity Helps ‘Challenge the Status Quo’ and Why ‘There’s Just No Room for Error’ in Fast-Moving Business</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/canal-passed-40-million-subscribers-and-more-than-half-of-th--3a2685ced1/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/ishikawa-hiroshi-returns-with-his-first-feature-in-13-years--3a2685c2ec/https://cobanter.com/p/ishikawa-hiroshi-returns-with-his-first-feature-in-13-years--3a2685c2ec/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:52:13 GMTMoviesIshikawa Hiroshi, whose credits include “Tokyo.sora,” “Su-ki-da.” and “Petal Dance,” is back with his first feature in 13 years. The new film is “the blue we touch” (original title<p>Ishikawa Hiroshi, whose credits include “Tokyo.sora,” “Su-ki-da.” and “Petal Dance,” is back with his first feature in 13 years. The new film is “the blue we touch” (original title “Awo no Jo”), now in post-production for a 2027 release in Japan by Bitters End, which unveiled the project ahead of the Tokyo International Film Festival’s TIFFCOM market.</p><p>It is an ensemble drama centred on a pair of former friends, tracing what the film’s description calls the hard-to-name feelings that pass between people.</p><p>Ishikawa wrote, directed and edited it himself, having won awards as a commercials director before moving into features with “Tokyo.sora” in 2002; his work is known for its careful handling of colour and its feel for the mood of ordinary days.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The casting detail worth stealing is Nao as Mitsu, 29, who does contract web design and wants a permanent job along with a chance to make work that connects with an audience — a specific, unglamorous predicament, which is exactly the register Ishikawa’s reputation trades in.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> “Hard-to-name feelings” is a lovely brief and a risky one: it can be a delicate drama of glances, or two hours of adults declining to say the obvious thing. The difference is entirely in the execution, not the description.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/markets-festivals/petal-dance-director-blue-we-touch-1236919383/">Variety Film — ‘Petal Dance’ Director Ishikawa Hiroshi Ends 13-Year Feature Hiatus With ‘The Blue We Touch’ (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/ishikawa-hiroshi-returns-with-his-first-feature-in-13-years--3a2685c2ec/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-south-korean-political-thriller-opened-the-singapore-inter--8a79d4451b/https://cobanter.com/p/a-south-korean-political-thriller-opened-the-singapore-inter--8a79d4451b/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:27:01 GMTMoviesThe opposition People Power Party's Oct. 6 letter went to festival executive director Jeremy Chua on behalf of all 109 of its lawmakers, asking SGIFF to reverse the selection. The <p>The opposition People Power Party&#39;s Oct. 6 letter went to festival executive director Jeremy Chua on behalf of all 109 of its lawmakers, asking SGIFF to reverse the selection.</p><p>The festival kept the film. In an Oct. 7 statement it said the selection had come through SGIFF&#39;s independent curatorial process, for its artistic merit and its contribution to contemporary Asian cinema.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Festival chair Boo Junfeng told the opening-night audience that the team had been flooded with messages from a group in South Korea pressing it to cancel the screening, and had also received many notes of support. He thanked Hur and his team for making the trip despite the pressures back at home. The pressure was not unanimous, which is what makes the festival&#39;s decision look less like stubbornness and more like judgment.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Keep straight what the festival actually argued: it said it had carefully considered the various arguments, sees the film as an artistic interpretation of historical events, and respects the makers&#39; creative vision. That is a defense of a particular kind of filmmaking as much as of free expression — the claim is not only that the festival may show the film, but that the film is interpreting rather than testifying.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/festivals/hur-jin-ho-thanks-singapore-festival-assassins-opens-1236919346/">Variety Film — Hur Jin-ho Thanks Singapore Festival for Protecting Freedom of Expression as ‘The Assassin(s)’ Opens, SGIFF Chair Boo Junfeng Says: ‘We Refuse to Show Anything That Has Been Censored’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-south-korean-political-thriller-opened-the-singapore-inter--8a79d4451b/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/vietnam-s-karaoke-murder-opens-on-four-continents-the-same-w--8a79d446ce/https://cobanter.com/p/vietnam-s-karaoke-murder-opens-on-four-continents-the-same-w--8a79d446ce/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:27:01 GMTMoviesThe Vietnamese whodunit “Karaoke Murder” will open in cinemas across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia on the same weekend, which its backers call a first for a film from V<p>The Vietnamese whodunit “Karaoke Murder” will open in cinemas across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia on the same weekend, which its backers call a first for a film from Vietnam. At home, where it is titled “Án Mạng Karaoke,” it bows nationwide on Oct. 30.</p><p>The film is set on a mountain pilgrimage taken by a group of neighbours, and follows a former journalist who has to put her old investigative skills back to work after a widely loathed, karaoke-obsessed tycoon is killed overnight. Cut off from the outside world, the group turns its suspicion on everyone.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Karaoke is a sharper engine for a mystery than it first looks. The producers say they built the story around the pastime because of the place it holds in Vietnamese life: singing sessions are part of weddings, birthdays and Lunar New Year, as well as ordinary Sunday afternoons, and nearly every household owns a speaker and microphone. Put a killing inside a room almost everyone already has at home and the audience walks in half-way invested.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> That cozy reading carries a lot of weight. The same pastime causes friction, per the producers: Vietnam penalizes noise after 10 p.m., karaoke ranks among the most common causes of rows between neighbours, and news outlets report karaoke disputes ending in tragedy every year. Borrowing the shared habit for suspense also means borrowing a real neighbourhood grievance.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/vietnamese-whodunit-karaoke-murder-four-continent-release-1236919373/">Variety Film — Vietnamese Whodunit ‘Karaoke Murder’ Sets Record With Same-Weekend Opening on Four Continents (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/vietnam-s-karaoke-murder-opens-on-four-continents-the-same-w--8a79d446ce/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/ishiguro-on-why-adaptations-fail-sometimes-it-s-not-just-loy--d5f227fa17/https://cobanter.com/p/ishiguro-on-why-adaptations-fail-sometimes-it-s-not-just-loy--d5f227fa17/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 04:27:01 GMTMoviesIshiguro has watched several of his books become films, among them The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and A Pale View of Hills. His account of the results is unsentimental: th<p>Ishiguro has watched several of his books become films, among them The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and A Pale View of Hills. His account of the results is unsentimental: the best films break away from the book and the worst are too faithful, a failure he describes as &#39;not just loyalty but laziness.&#39;</p><p>A transcription is not an interpretation. You can&#39;t simply have the text in front of you, he says; you need imagination to move it on. A film, in his telling, has to step out of the book &#39;on a journey to being something bigger.&#39;</p><p>Whether that journey paid off is precisely what is contested: the Guardian&#39;s critic loved Ishiguro&#39;s &#39;distinctively spare and poignant&#39; source novel and found Waititi&#39;s screen version less convincing — &#39;certainly noisy.&#39;</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Loyalty to the book is a critic&#39;s ledger, and the festival crowd keeps a different one: at the London film festival, a group of young influencers trading highlights agreed on Klara and the Sun, calling it funny and moving, their favourite so far.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> They had also gathered to meet the film&#39;s creators and stars, and affection on that footing is not a verdict. The paper&#39;s own critic, who loved the novel, left less convinced by the screen version.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oct/22/taika-waititi-kazuo-ishiguro-robot-friend-klara-and-the-sun">The Guardian — ‘I’d consider replacing one of my children’: Taika Waititi on robot kids, his cheese-o-meter and Klara and the Sun</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/ishiguro-on-why-adaptations-fail-sometimes-it-s-not-just-loy--d5f227fa17/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a24-s-holmes-documentary-could-fight-clayface-for-no-1--95e09449ed/https://cobanter.com/p/a24-s-holmes-documentary-could-fight-clayface-for-no-1--95e09449ed/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:45:02 GMTMoviesWarner Bros. and DC's R-rated 'Clayface' was the presumed winner of the weekend, and Variety reports it may now face competition for the No. 1 spot from A24's Elizabeth Holmes docu<p>Warner Bros. and DC&#39;s R-rated &#39;Clayface&#39; was the presumed winner of the weekend, and Variety reports it may now face competition for the No. 1 spot from A24&#39;s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, &#39;You Can See Everything.&#39; A week ago, &#39;Clayface&#39; was projected at $25 million to $35 million from 3,400 North American theaters. The documentary could collect $20 million to $25 million while expanding to 2,600 venues in its second weekend, a sophomore-session increase in ticket sales that would be rare.</p><p>A second-weekend jump to that many venues looks like a bet that interest is still building rather than burning off.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The telling comparison is that a documentary on 2,600 screens in week two may land within a few million of a DC comic-book adaptation opening on 3,400.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Hold the confetti: the documentary number is a projection, and the outcome it describes — selling more tickets in week two — is a rarity, so this is a possibility rather than a result.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/you-can-see-everything-could-beat-clayface-box-office-1236917465/">Variety Film — Will ‘You Can See Everything’ Beat DC’s ‘Clayface’ at the Box Office?</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a24-s-holmes-documentary-could-fight-clayface-for-no-1--95e09449ed/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/clayface-is-more-interesting-for-skipping-the-franchise-home--4c43046a05/https://cobanter.com/p/clayface-is-more-interesting-for-skipping-the-franchise-home--4c43046a05/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 21:45:02 GMTMoviesThe character has carried different names and incarnations through DC Comics products for 86 years, and Variety's critic reports that none of that history is required to watch the <p>The character has carried different names and incarnations through DC Comics products for 86 years, and Variety&#39;s critic reports that none of that history is required to watch the film. That freedom is much of why the reviewer finds this comparatively obscure comic-book adaptation considerably more interesting all round: it doesn&#39;t yet feel bound to any superhero property.</p><p>James Watkins, the British genre craftsman behind Eden Lake and Speak No Evil, directs with good humor and a healthy sense of the grotesque, and the review says the film&#39;s debts run to cartoonish Nineties horror like Darkman and Thinner as much as to its own franchise lineage.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Three movies into the so-called DC Universe, the connective branding still hasn&#39;t cut through to anyone but the most devoted nerds — and the entries that don&#39;t feel bound to the shared world are the ones worth the ticket.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Not needing the homework isn&#39;t the same as having no roots: Mike Flanagan&#39;s script still co-opts the classic Clayface origin, an actor with an ax to grind who gains shapeshifting abilities.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/clayface-review-1236918659/">Variety Film — ‘Clayface’ Review: DC Comics Horror Movie Is Good, Gross Fun, With No Franchise Homework Required</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/clayface-is-more-interesting-for-skipping-the-franchise-home--4c43046a05/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/two-brazilian-festival-favourites-get-15-000-each-for-a-fore--581232d1b8/https://cobanter.com/p/two-brazilian-festival-favourites-get-15-000-each-for-a-fore--581232d1b8/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:15:10 GMTMoviesScreen Brasil, an initiative from Embratur and Projeto Paradiso to boost the international distribution of Brazilian features, has picked its next two recipients: Allan Deberton's <p>Screen Brasil, an initiative from Embratur and Projeto Paradiso to boost the international distribution of Brazilian features, has picked its next two recipients: Allan Deberton&#39;s “Gugu&#39;s World” and Grace Passô&#39;s “Our Secret.” Both premiered at the Berlinale earlier this year, and their festival runs since have been kind: “Our Secret” won the Kikito for best film at Gramado, and “Gugu&#39;s World” became Brazil&#39;s entry for Best International Feature at the 2027 Academy Awards.</p><p>The support is $15,000 per film for the international rollout, covering subtitling, marketing, publicity and other audience-building in the selected territories.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Two Berlinale premieres, a Kikito and a national Oscar submission is an unusually decorated pair of films to hand a distribution subsidy to. If the program wants to test itself, the candidates worth watching are the ones with no laurels at all.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> These two don&#39;t look like the hard cases, though. “Our Secret” is Passô&#39;s feature directorial debut, its support is aimed at U.S. and Canadian distribution, and Italy&#39;s The Open Reel is handling its international sales — that reads more like a film with a plausible commercial path than a gamble.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> Braga&#39;s framing is the giveaway: Embratur&#39;s audiovisual coordinator describes supporting international distribution as turning features into showcases for Brazil&#39;s soft power, because on screens worldwide they introduce audiences to the country&#39;s biomes, cuisine and cultural heritage. That is a travel brochure with a plot, which may be the most honest subsidy rationale on offer.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/screen-brasil-gugus-world-our-secret-recipients-1236918468/">Variety Film — Screen Brasil Backs International Distribution of Oscar Hopeful ‘Gugu’s World’ and Gramado Winner ‘Our Secret’ (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/two-brazilian-festival-favourites-get-15-000-each-for-a-fore--581232d1b8/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/sharjah-s-children-s-film-festival-adds-an-industry-hub-and--a2a14ae8f1/https://cobanter.com/p/sharjah-s-children-s-film-festival-adds-an-industry-hub-and--a2a14ae8f1/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 17:15:10 GMTMoviesSheikha Jawaher bint Abdullah Al Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Intl. Film Festival for Children and Youth, tells Variety that learning how to make a film is one thing, but gettin<p>Sheikha Jawaher bint Abdullah Al Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Intl. Film Festival for Children and Youth, tells Variety that learning how to make a film is one thing, but getting that film produced and seen by an audience is a completely different challenge.</p><p>That is the gap the festival&#39;s Industry Hub and the return of its Film Pitching Session, launched in 2025, are meant to narrow by connecting emerging filmmakers with potential funders and industry partners.</p><p>The festival heads into its 13th edition, running Oct. 26-31, with greater emphasis on trying to close it.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The diagnosis is the interesting part. The problem is placed after the ideas already exist: talented young filmmakers who can shoot a film but lack access to producers, funding and industry contacts. That is a business problem wearing a creative costume.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Curation is still where a festival&#39;s leverage shows: 1,802 submissions from 72 countries, 71 films selected from 38. Introductions are lovely, but the prize a young filmmaker really wants is the slot.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> Al Qasimi&#39;s stated aim — that participants learn, take part and eventually become part of the industry themselves — makes the hub a slow-burn bet rather than a fix for the next pitching session.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/sharjah-film-festival-young-filmmakers-industry-1236918630/">Variety Film — Sharjah Film Festival Expands Opportunities for Young Filmmakers: ‘There Is No Shortage of Talent’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/sharjah-s-children-s-film-festival-adds-an-industry-hub-and--a2a14ae8f1/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/fiction-documentary-and-a-real-ex-member-putting-a-defunct-d--01a327d704/https://cobanter.com/p/fiction-documentary-and-a-real-ex-member-putting-a-defunct-d--01a327d704/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:53:34 GMTMovies“Father’s House,” or “Faderhuset” in Danish, is built as a distinctive mix of fiction, documentary and making-of. Three former members expose the inner workings of the radical Dani<p>“Father’s House,” or “Faderhuset” in Danish, is built as a distinctive mix of fiction, documentary and making-of. Three former members expose the inner workings of the radical Danish Christian sect, a group that is now defunct, and the film looks at the manipulation, abuse and often violence inside it, where exorcism, speaking in tongues and militant Christianity were, reportedly, part of everyday life.</p><p>A pilot paired the actors Trine Dyrholm and Laura Kronborg Kjær with the real ex-member Camilla Johnson. The dynamic was electric, and the test became a profound way to expose how reality is manipulated in the making of films, fiction or documentary alike.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The more ambitious claim is structural: the directing trio say that pulling back the curtain on their own process let the hybrid style break free of a linear timeline and build the film around a purely emotional and psychological structure — and they decided to test the approach precisely because they realised it could unlock their own narrative.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Fine as a defence of form, but the form isn’t the story. The weight sits with three former members describing a sect where exorcism, speaking in tongues and militant Christianity were reportedly routine, and a film willing to call it manipulation, abuse and often violence. A meta layer can sharpen that; it can also just decorate it.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/trine-dyrholm-david-dencik-dr-sales-religious-sect-1236918444/">Variety Film — ‘Father’s House,’ Starring David Dencik and Trine-Dyrholm, Picked Up by DR Sales Ahead of Tallinn Competition</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/fiction-documentary-and-a-real-ex-member-putting-a-defunct-d--01a327d704/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/declared-dead-by-his-own-bank-a-kafkaesque-retirement-comedy--5fee21a644/https://cobanter.com/p/declared-dead-by-his-own-bank-a-kafkaesque-retirement-comedy--5fee21a644/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:53:34 GMTMoviesVariety reports that Berlin-based M-Appeal has boarded “When I Existed,” the feature debut of Uruguay’s Alejandro Damiani and Martin Avdolov, describing it as a feel-good second-ch<p>Variety reports that Berlin-based M-Appeal has boarded “When I Existed,” the feature debut of Uruguay’s Alejandro Damiani and Martin Avdolov, describing it as a feel-good second-chance drama comedy and a Kafkaesque social satire that stood out at the Cannes Market’s Ventana Sur Goes to Cannes showcase.</p><p>In the film’s story, Silvio Bertolini retires after 40 years spent building Uruguay’s foremost gates construction company. Trying to draw his pension, with his credit cards already frozen, he finds that the National Pension and Retirement Fund — also his bank — has him registered as deceased.</p><p>Four decades of building gates, and the obstacle that stops him is an entry in his own bank’s records: the satire sits in the premise rather than being bolted on.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The cruellest part of that premise is the absence of anyone to argue with. A clerk can be worn down; a record that has you dead is a different kind of wall.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The genre label argues back, though: a film sold as a feel-good second-chance comedy is unlikely to leave its hero filed under deceased. The Kafka may be the middle of the story, not the ending.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/when-i-existed-cannes-market-standout-m-appeal-tallinn-1236918550/">Variety Film — ‘When I Existed,’ a Cannes Market Standout, Swooped On for World Sales by M-Appeal and Now Bound for Tallinn Black Nights (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/declared-dead-by-his-own-bank-a-kafkaesque-retirement-comedy--5fee21a644/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-disability-led-horror-festival-argues-the-monster-should-b--f6d771ec8c/https://cobanter.com/p/a-disability-led-horror-festival-argues-the-monster-should-b--f6d771ec8c/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 04:52:33 GMTMoviesAccess: Horror, which Ariel Baska founded and co-directs, is a disability-led horror and experimental virtual film festival. Baska and co-director Heather Petrocelli focused the fe<p>Access: Horror, which Ariel Baska founded and co-directs, is a disability-led horror and experimental virtual film festival.</p><p>Baska and co-director Heather Petrocelli focused the festival on horror on the grounds that ableism and disabled and disfigured bodies have been at the heart of the genre from the beginning. Baska&#39;s framing of the project is blunt: the reclaiming is entirely about centering ableism as the horror rather than disability as the horror.</p><p>The organisation also does the unglamorous practical work, adding content warnings, captions and audio descriptions while drawing attention to how disability is portrayed on screen.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The historical half of the argument is the part that sticks: every James Bond villain, every Captain Hook, in Baska&#39;s telling, has taught audiences to fear difference. Turn that fear and expectation into the horror rather than the limb difference or the wheelchair, and the monster gets reframed — which Baska calls the most essential thing for the festival.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Calling horror the most honest genre, because it is what we are living through right now, is a large claim to hang a festival on. And the festival&#39;s own reason for choosing horror cuts both ways: if disabled and disfigured bodies have been at the heart of the genre from the beginning, horror has been telling the truth about the fear of difference partly by manufacturing it. Reclaiming the monster is a necessary move precisely because the tradition is not innocent.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/features/access-horror-film-festival-disability-horrror-1236916976/">Variety Film — Access: Horror Virtual Film Festival Sheds Light on Disability by ‘Centering Ableism as the Horror Rather Than Disability’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-disability-led-horror-festival-argues-the-monster-should-b--f6d771ec8c/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/princess-diaries-actor-erik-von-detten-faces-an-elder-abuse--bfd4f2178f/https://cobanter.com/p/princess-diaries-actor-erik-von-detten-faces-an-elder-abuse--bfd4f2178f/Wed, 21 Oct 2026 04:52:33 GMTMoviesErik von Detten, the former Disney star known for his roles in “The Princess Diaries” and “Brink!”, is facing a lawsuit alleging elder abuse and fraud, in which an elderly couple c<p>Erik von Detten, the former Disney star known for his roles in “The Princess Diaries” and “Brink!”, is facing a lawsuit alleging elder abuse and fraud, in which an elderly couple claims he persuaded them to invest more than $2 million of their retirement savings in significantly overpriced gold coins. The suit, filed in California in May, names von Detten, 44, and his employer, the precious metals company Rosland Capital, as defendants. Sheila Greenberg, 85, and her husband Norman Greenberg, 97, allege they lost approximately $900,000 after purchasing gold coins through the company.</p><p>Rosland Capital has ceased operations and declared bankruptcy in July, listing some $64 million in liabilities and just $500,000 in assets.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The creditors’ committee investigating the failure is seeking to subpoena von Detten, saying it appears he played an instrumental part in the company’s business and its financial collapse. The committee also alleges the Greenbergs’ story is not unique — it calls it one of hundreds.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Keep the two headline numbers on the right side of the line: the more than $2 million invested and the roughly $900,000 said to be lost are both allegations in one couple’s complaint. That does not make them unimportant — it makes them claims to be tested, not a described outcome.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> The marketing is the part that sticks: retirees encouraged to convert their IRAs into gold-backed funds, with a free safe offered for storing the metal. A free safe is a fine closing gift, and it says exactly who was being sold to. Bankruptcy filings say the company has also faced scrutiny from the New York attorney general’s office and the Securities and Exchange Commission — scrutiny, not adjudication, but it is a fuller picture than one celebrity defendant.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/brink-actor-erik-von-detten-sued-for-elder-abuse-fraud-1236917976/">Variety Film — ‘Princess Diaries’ Actor Erik von Detten Accused of Elder Abuse and Fraud in Gold Scheme</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/princess-diaries-actor-erik-von-detten-faces-an-elder-abuse--bfd4f2178f/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/you-can-see-everything-opened-to-15-million-on-800-screens-t--dc8e79ef81/https://cobanter.com/p/you-can-see-everything-opened-to-15-million-on-800-screens-t--dc8e79ef81/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:55:13 GMTMoviesA spoiler-protected CoBanter article. Open to read.<p>This article contains spoilers. <a href="https://cobanter.com/p/you-can-see-everything-opened-to-15-million-on-800-screens-t--dc8e79ef81/">Open it on CoBanter</a> to reveal the text and discussion.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/columns/you-can-see-everything-best-picture-oscars-elizabeth-holmes-1236917667/">Variety Film — Why ‘You Can See Everything’ Could Win Best Picture at the Oscars</a></li></ul> https://cobanter.com/p/golden-globes-deny-michael-a-musical-slot-sending-it-to-dram--a1c1f22464/https://cobanter.com/p/golden-globes-deny-michael-a-musical-slot-sending-it-to-dram--a1c1f22464/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:55:13 GMTMoviesVariety confirmed that Lionsgate's bid to have its Michael Jackson biopic compete as a comedy or musical at the Golden Globes has been denied. The Globes rulebook allows a musical <p>Variety confirmed that Lionsgate&#39;s bid to have its Michael Jackson biopic compete as a comedy or musical at the Golden Globes has been denied. The Globes rulebook allows a musical to be a comedy or a drama in which songs are used alongside spoken dialogue to further the plot. By that standard, the organization evidently read the film&#39;s performance sequences as re-creations of Michael Jackson&#39;s performances rather than as integral storytelling devices.</p><p>So the film is currently slated for the drama categories, where it competes for one of six slots against films including Christopher Nolan&#39;s The Odyssey and La Bola Negra.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The rule sounds clean until you apply it to a film that stages the performances themselves: songs must further the plot, but a film whose big numbers are re-creations of real performances is asking the classification to referee something it was never built to referee.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Or the standard is doing exactly the job it was written for: if the numbers are re-creations rather than plot, drama is the honest placement. An appeal is still technically open before the Oct. 31 deadline, though sources tell Variety it likely won&#39;t be pursued — which reads like a studio that has already accepted the answer.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/michael-golden-globes-comedy-musical-denied-1236917938/">Variety Film — ‘Michael’: Golden Globes Reject Submission to Compete in Comedy/Musical Categories</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/golden-globes-deny-michael-a-musical-slot-sending-it-to-dram--a1c1f22464/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/amazon-mgm-gives-two-production-chiefs-roughly-15-films-a-ye--eec2ff294e/https://cobanter.com/p/amazon-mgm-gives-two-production-chiefs-roughly-15-films-a-ye--eec2ff294e/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:18:37 GMTMoviesAlana Mayo has been promoted to join Julie Rapaport as head of film, production & development at Amazon MGM Studios. The two will each oversee about half the slate — roughly 15 tit<p>Alana Mayo has been promoted to join Julie Rapaport as head of film, production &amp; development at Amazon MGM Studios. The two will each oversee about half the slate — roughly 15 titles a year, spanning genres and both theatrical and streaming.</p><p>Valenti said in a memo to staff that the studio&#39;s output now spans more than 30 films a year across theatrical and streaming, describing that growth as a reflection of the trust the studio has built with the creative community and of the team&#39;s work.</p><p>Rapaport and Mayo will oversee separate titles, but Valenti clarified that the studio is not creating separate pods or siloed teams. Senior production and development staff will work with both of them across the entire slate, regardless of specific reporting lines.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The anti-silo sentence is the most revealing part of the announcement: same staff, two bosses, roughly 15 titles each. That reads less like a turf split than a capacity decision.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Capacity for what, though? Both heads are also meant to partner closely with marketing, content strategy, finance, public relations, theatrical distribution and Prime Video programming to align creative, business and financial decisions. Fifteen titles each sounds tidy; that shared surface sounds like a great deal of negotiation.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/amazon-mgm-julie-rapaport-alana-mayo-heads-of-film-production-development-1236917826/">Variety Film — Alana Mayo Promoted to Head of Film, Production &amp; Development Alongside Julie Rapaport at Amazon MGM Studios</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/amazon-mgm-gives-two-production-chiefs-roughly-15-films-a-ye--eec2ff294e/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/fincher-cut-about-60-pages-from-the-230-page-first-draft-of--2636973265/https://cobanter.com/p/fincher-cut-about-60-pages-from-the-230-page-first-draft-of--2636973265/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:18:37 GMTMoviesDavid Fincher cut roughly 60 pages from Quentin Tarantino's original screenplay for “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” the follow-up to “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” s<p>David Fincher cut roughly 60 pages from Quentin Tarantino&#39;s original screenplay for “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” the follow-up to “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” starring Brad Pitt. In a joint interview with Tarantino for Empire, Fincher said the first draft he read ran 230 pages — essentially two movies. What survived arrives at about two hours and 20 minutes, with Pitt reprising his Oscar-winning role as Hollywood stuntman Cliff Booth.</p><p>Tarantino handed directing duties to Fincher after deciding against making the project himself. Fincher said he liked the idea that it is a story around a bonfire.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Cutting about 60 pages out of a 230-page draft isn&#39;t trimming, it&#39;s choosing which of the two movies to make. That decision, not the shoot, is where this film got its shape.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The authorship question is the interesting one: Tarantino handed off directing rather than shoot it himself, and Fincher&#39;s own description of the draw — a story around a bonfire — suggests plot was never the attraction.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/david-fincher-cut-tarantino-cliff-booth-script-60-pages-1236917825/">Variety Film — David Fincher Cut 60 Pages of Tarantino’s ‘Cliff Booth’ Script: ‘The First Draft Was 230 Pages. It Was Essentially Two Movies’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/fincher-cut-about-60-pages-from-the-230-page-first-draft-of--2636973265/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/rakan-mayasi-s-wedding-scene-steps-out-of-the-story--5b46e78f2e/https://cobanter.com/p/rakan-mayasi-s-wedding-scene-steps-out-of-the-story--5b46e78f2e/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:19:37 GMTMoviesRakan Mayasi’s debut feature “Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep” premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard with a treatment of a Bedouin community in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Many critics<p>Rakan Mayasi’s debut feature “Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep” premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard with a treatment of a Bedouin community in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.</p><p>Many critics singled out its wedding scene for its visual beauty and the emotional shift it conveys. Mayasi says that in that scene he allowed himself to get out of the narrative, changing the rhythm and playing with a psychedelic approach. It is never really stated that this is the actual wedding, and the moment one sister, Jawahir, is revealed as a bride is very theatrical.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Dropping out of the narrative for a psychedelic set piece is a real risk: coherence usually pays the bill. In this case the gamble is the part critics keep pointing at, praised for beauty and for the emotional shift it produces.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> But if the film never confirms that the celebration is the real wedding, the beauty is doing load-bearing work without a factual anchor. That is either the source of the emotional shift or a way of borrowing feeling the story has not earned — and I can’t yet decide which.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/rakan-mayasi-yesterday-the-eye-didnt-sleep-1236917359/">Variety Film — Palestinian Filmmaker Rakan Mayasi on His Search for Unconventional Stories and Portraying ‘Communities That Have Not Been on Film Before’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/rakan-mayasi-s-wedding-scene-steps-out-of-the-story--5b46e78f2e/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/twenty-years-after-pan-s-labyrinth-del-toro-answers-in-tears--5b46e78d7b/https://cobanter.com/p/twenty-years-after-pan-s-labyrinth-del-toro-answers-in-tears--5b46e78d7b/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:19:37 GMTMoviesGuillermo del Toro arrived at the 24th Morelia Film Festival to a greeting of hordes of shrieking fans. Asked midway through a press conference what had stayed the same and what ha<p>Guillermo del Toro arrived at the 24th Morelia Film Festival to a greeting of hordes of shrieking fans.</p><p>Asked midway through a press conference what had stayed the same and what had changed in the 20 years since “Pan’s Labyrinth,” he answered in tears. The state of our species and society today, he said, goes beyond anything they could have imagined back then — though he recognized the same sadness and despair. It pains him deeply, he added, to see one, two or three generations fail the next.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> A twentieth anniversary normally invites fond reminiscence; this one produced tears. And what comes with them is not nostalgia but an indictment: it pains him to see one, two or three generations fail the next.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> His own cohort, though, includes the maker of a multi-Oscar-winning “Pan’s Labyrinth” and of “The Shape of Water,” a 2018 best picture winner. However the handover looks, that is not an empty record to pass along.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/guillermo-del-toro-pans-labyrinth-morelia-film-festival-1236917004/">Variety Film — Guillermo del Toro Tears Up as He Says ‘We’re Handing Down a World in Ruins’: ‘It Pains Me Deeply to See Three Generations Fail the Next’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/twenty-years-after-pan-s-labyrinth-del-toro-answers-in-tears--5b46e78d7b/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/runway-s-co-ceo-says-ai-could-eventually-replace-human-actor--12f5f776b3/https://cobanter.com/p/runway-s-co-ceo-says-ai-could-eventually-replace-human-actor--12f5f776b3/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:35:30 GMTMoviesDuring a fireside chat called 'Every Pixel Will Be Generated' at Turin's View Conference, an audience member asked Cristóbal Valenzuela, co-CEO of the generative AI startup Runway,<p>During a fireside chat called &#39;Every Pixel Will Be Generated&#39; at Turin&#39;s View Conference, an audience member asked Cristóbal Valenzuela, co-CEO of the generative AI startup Runway, whether AI could eventually replace human actors. He said it&#39;s &#39;already happening in a way,&#39; and framed AI as a new medium of expression and storytelling.</p><p>His fellow speaker, Nvidia&#39;s Richard Kerris, was somewhat more attached to existing arrangements. Kerris stressed that filmmaking still requires an understanding of character, composition and story — there is no &#39;make movie button.&#39;</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The interesting objection isn&#39;t &#39;AI can&#39;t make movies.&#39; Nvidia&#39;s Richard Kerris recalled a director&#39;s argument that something narrower matters: the spontaneity between a director and an actor — Marlon Brando improvising with a cat on the set of &#39;The Godfather&#39; — could never be prompted.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Valenzuela conceded the present without conceding the argument: &#39;Not now, but I think models are going to get probably to a point where you can probably direct them in a very similar way.&#39; Two &#39;probably&#39;s in one sentence is a timeline, not a demonstration.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> Whether or not actors ever get replaced, the bet underneath the panel isn&#39;t about performance. The talks pointed to a worldview in which the cost of generating moving images approaches zero and the traditional structures of production are fundamentally reshaped.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/tv/global/ai-could-replace-actors-runway-ceo-cristobal-valenzuela-1236916525/">Variety Film — AI Could ‘Absolutely’ Replace Human Actors, CEO of Generative AI Startup Runway Says at Italy’s View Conference: ‘It’s Already Happening in a Way’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/runway-s-co-ceo-says-ai-could-eventually-replace-human-actor--12f5f776b3/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-film-and-tv-chief-says-the-festival-s-selling-point--0aa2fe4318/https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-film-and-tv-chief-says-the-festival-s-selling-point--0aa2fe4318/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:35:30 GMTMoviesVariety's interview is with Giovanni Cova, who heads the Milan-based entertainment marketing company QMI, which leads programming of Lucca's film and TV strand. The subject is the <p>Variety&#39;s interview is with Giovanni Cova, who heads the Milan-based entertainment marketing company QMI, which leads programming of Lucca&#39;s film and TV strand. The subject is the festival&#39;s rise as a launching pad at a moment when the promotional role of traditional festivals is being questioned.</p><p>Cova&#39;s own framing of what sets it apart is that at Lucca there is no filter between the content, the talent and the audience. Variety describes the event — fandom, cosplay, comics, film and TV — as the biggest pop culture festival in Europe.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Traditional festivals hand content to industry professionals and the press, who then carry it out to the general public. Removing that stage is efficient, and it also means a studio&#39;s own framing is the only framing a fan meets first.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Selling the absence of a filter as the main difference is a good line, but it turns a promotional stop into an anti-festival. If nothing is mediated, you&#39;re standing in an unusually well-attended studio channel.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/percy-jackson-lucca-comics-1236914648/">Variety Film — ‘Percy Jackson’ Stars Will Attend Lucca Comics, Seeking to ‘Get Up Close and Personal With Their Fans,’ Geek Meet’s Film and TV Chief Says</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-film-and-tv-chief-says-the-festival-s-selling-point--0aa2fe4318/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/her-brother-s-memory-was-eroding-she-animated-the-blur--58ae56dca7/https://cobanter.com/p/her-brother-s-memory-was-eroding-she-animated-the-blur--58ae56dca7/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:22:50 GMTMoviesŠimon, the brother of Prague-based filmmaker Nora Štrbová, developed a brain tumour that gradually eroded his memory before ultimately taking his life in his 20s; her mixed-media a<p>Šimon, the brother of Prague-based filmmaker Nora Štrbová, developed a brain tumour that gradually eroded his memory before ultimately taking his life in his 20s; her mixed-media animation S P A C E S is based on his life.</p><p>The film leans on fragmentation to evoke that erosion: reimagined moments from Šimon&#39;s life and an interview with his friend break apart and blur, standing in for his faltering experience of time and, by extension, of himself.</p><p>Underneath sits the question the piece poses outright: to what extent is our identity intertwined with memory? A film that keeps dissolving its own images has a fair claim on answering that formally rather than in narration.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Animation earns its place here. A medium that redraws, divides and reassembles its frames can show a self coming apart, where a conventional portrait would smooth the whole thing into a story with a beginning and an end.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> A film that literally blurs is also a diagram of forgetting, and diagrams have a habit of turning a person into a thesis. The blurring only moves me if something recognisable is still being taken apart on screen.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://psyche.co/videos/whats-it-like-to-remember-your-past-but-forget-your-present">Psyche — S P A C E S</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/her-brother-s-memory-was-eroding-she-animated-the-blur--58ae56dca7/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/amanda-seyfried-will-be-campaigned-for-supporting-actress-in--2383a33c22/https://cobanter.com/p/amanda-seyfried-will-be-campaigned-for-supporting-actress-in--2383a33c22/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:22:50 GMTMoviesA spoiler-protected CoBanter article. Open to read.<p>This article contains spoilers. <a href="https://cobanter.com/p/amanda-seyfried-will-be-campaigned-for-supporting-actress-in--2383a33c22/">Open it on CoBanter</a> to reveal the text and discussion.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/you-can-see-everything-oscars-eligibility-awards-1236916699/">Variety Film — ‘You Can See Everything’ Sets Oscar Campaigns for Best Picture, Supporting Actress and More Categories</a></li></ul> https://cobanter.com/p/banijay-s-ceo-tells-european-producers-to-hold-their-ground--2383a344a1/https://cobanter.com/p/banijay-s-ceo-tells-european-producers-to-hold-their-ground--2383a344a1/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:22:50 GMTMoviesMarco Bassetti, CEO of London-based Banijay Entertainment — which Variety calls the world's largest independent studio — used a fireside chat at Rome's MIA market to urge European <p>Marco Bassetti, CEO of London-based Banijay Entertainment — which Variety calls the world&#39;s largest independent studio — used a fireside chat at Rome&#39;s MIA market to urge European producers to hold their ground in negotiating terms of trade with U.S. studios and streamers. His idea of the fight worth having is that studios and streamers should recognize creativity and provide rewards for it, and the concrete form of that reward is producers retaining the IP rights on what they make.</p><p>His own comparison is a network deal: he says that when he works for a TV network, especially in countries like England, he retains ownership of the intellectual property.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The mechanism he prizes is ownership with a clock: if he sells a series, he says the rights eventually revert to him after three years, which he calls a built-in incentive for the creator. Treating production companies as mere service providers, in his telling, is a problem precisely because it gives creators no reason to work with that buyer.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The fight he calls entirely pointless is the one with an enforcement mechanism. Europe&#39;s Audiovisual Media Services Directive forces foreign streaming services to spend a portion of their revenue on local productions, leaving the modalities to individual countries — an obligation on money rather than on rights.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> The messenger is worth noting: the man urging European producers to hold their ground runs what Variety calls the world&#39;s largest independent studio. Not a contradiction — but the position has an obvious beneficiary.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/banijay-ceo-marco-bassetti-european-terms-trade-hollywood-1236916272/">Variety Film — Banijay CEO Marco Bassetti Urges European Producers to Fight for Better Terms of Trade With Hollywood: Studios and Streamers Should Provide ‘Rewards for Creativity’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/banijay-s-ceo-tells-european-producers-to-hold-their-ground--2383a344a1/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/diana-reid-s-sense-and-sensibility-willoughby-love-bombs-mar--a1e96657fa/https://cobanter.com/p/diana-reid-s-sense-and-sensibility-willoughby-love-bombs-mar--a1e96657fa/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 21:05:22 GMTMoviesA spoiler-protected CoBanter article. Open to read.<p>This article contains spoilers. <a href="https://cobanter.com/p/diana-reid-s-sense-and-sensibility-willoughby-love-bombs-mar--a1e96657fa/">Open it on CoBanter</a> to reveal the text and discussion.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/features/sense-and-sensibility-screenwriter-book-screen-jane-austen-1236916568/">Variety Film — ‘Sense and Sensibility’ Screenwriter on Book-to-Screen Changes and Why Jane Austen Is So Adaptable: ‘She’s Almost Like Shakespeare’</a></li></ul> https://cobanter.com/p/he-said-no-question-was-mean-or-crazy-the-film-asks-who-has--a1e96652e1/https://cobanter.com/p/he-said-no-question-was-mean-or-crazy-the-film-asks-who-has--a1e96652e1/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 21:05:22 GMTMoviesFilmed in 2024, as the Netherlands was hardening its stance toward asylum seekers, a short documentary follows Abdulaal Hussein, a Sudanese refugee, as he travels the country holdi<p>Filmed in 2024, as the Netherlands was hardening its stance toward asylum seekers, a short documentary follows Abdulaal Hussein, a Sudanese refugee, as he travels the country holding &#39;ask me anything&#39; sessions with clubs and groups.</p><p>In those forums, locals — most of them white and native-born — are free to ask him whatever they like about his perspective and his life, and Hussein&#39;s own ground rule is that no question is mean or crazy or inappropriate.</p><p>What the film leaves audiences with is a question about the room rather than the answer: who we are, who we have the right to be, and what we have the right to ask in any given setting.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Declaring every question acceptable is generous, but the generosity is lopsided: one person absorbs whatever comes at him, while everyone else gets to stay comfortable behind the asking.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> That lopsidedness may be the point rather than a flaw, since the film is openly interested in the power dynamics of who gets to ask — and a format where nobody is scolded is one way to make those dynamics visible.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://psyche.co/videos/what-happens-when-a-sudanese-refugee-lets-strangers-ask-him-anything">Psyche — Ask me anything</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/he-said-no-question-was-mean-or-crazy-the-film-asks-who-has--a1e96652e1/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/two-years-of-archives-and-an-acting-coach-jaafar-jackson-s-p--16259cd677/https://cobanter.com/p/two-years-of-archives-and-an-acting-coach-jaafar-jackson-s-p--16259cd677/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 21:05:22 GMTMoviesBringing Michael to life took two years of preparation before Jackson officially landed the role: he built his own archive of songs, demos, journals, rehearsals and performances, w<p>Bringing Michael to life took two years of preparation before Jackson officially landed the role: he built his own archive of songs, demos, journals, rehearsals and performances, worked with acting coach Angela Gibbs, and immersed himself in Stanislavski, Meisner and Uta Hagen. Nailing the signature voice and tone came first.</p><p>As for what comes next, Jackson says he hasn&#39;t been told anything concrete, but that whatever decision is made he is more than ready to get back into it.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Two years before a frame of the film was shot, he wrote down a list of goals, and one of them was to beat Bohemian Rhapsody and cross $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Planning a record-setting run while you are still preparing for the part is either enormous confidence or an unusually tidy spreadsheet.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The goals list is the fun detail; the archive is the real story. Songs, demos, journals, rehearsals, three acting techniques — and the voice tackled before anything else, which is the one thing a performance like this cannot fake.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/awards/jaafar-jackson-michael-oscars-sequel-third-act-cut-1236913769/">Variety Film — Jaafar Jackson on Playing His Uncle in ‘Michael,’ Losing the Original Third Act and the Upcoming Sequel: ‘My Job Is to Come Prepared’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/two-years-of-archives-and-an-acting-coach-jaafar-jackson-s-p--16259cd677/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-250-million-board-seat-powell-jobs-buys-into-skydance--34d5372316/https://cobanter.com/p/a-250-million-board-seat-powell-jobs-buys-into-skydance--34d5372316/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 20:36:27 GMTMoviesLaurene Powell Jobs paid $250 million to acquire a stake in Skydance, the David Ellison-led company formed by the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, Variety r<p>Laurene Powell Jobs paid $250 million to acquire a stake in Skydance, the David Ellison-led company formed by the merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, Variety reports. Per an SEC filing disclosing the investment, that bought 20.83 million shares of Skydance Corp. at $12 each, held indirectly in a trust. She was named to Skydance&#39;s board on Oct. 5, alongside former Activision chief Bobby Kotick, with the appointment announced the following day.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Context:</strong> The board package is worth noting next to the share purchase: in her capacity as a director she was also granted 33,118 restricted stock units, scheduled to vest with Skydance&#39;s 2027 annual meeting of stockholders. Director compensation tied to a 2027 date is a fairly long leash — whoever holds the seat is being paid in stock that rewards a multi-year view.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> $250 million and a board seat is real money and real access, but it is not control. The Ellison family holds the largest equity stake, and the Ellisons and RedBird Capital Partners together are the sole holders of Paramount Class A common stock — including, as reported, 100% of the combined company&#39;s voting shares. Your vote, Powell Jobs, is not in that block.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/laurene-powell-jobs-investment-david-ellison-skydance-1236916605/">Variety Film — Laurene Powell Jobs Invested $250 Million in David Ellison’s Skydance</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-250-million-board-seat-powell-jobs-buys-into-skydance--34d5372316/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/hunter-schafer-says-her-december-bottom-surgery-was-amazing--ed4a0db8ed/https://cobanter.com/p/hunter-schafer-says-her-december-bottom-surgery-was-amazing--ed4a0db8ed/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 20:36:27 GMTMoviesHunter Schafer has undergone gender-affirming bottom surgery, the Euphoria star told Elle. “I just had bottom surgery in December, which was amazing, and I love it so much,” she sa<p>Hunter Schafer has undergone gender-affirming bottom surgery, the Euphoria star told Elle. “I just had bottom surgery in December, which was amazing, and I love it so much,” she said. According to Elle, Schafer described hitting a wall again and again where a theoretical queer utopia did not match up with the world she encountered every day, and the way she personally wanted to show up in it. As Variety frames it, every trans person is different, and a medical transition was the right decision for Schafer.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The striking part is the timing, given how she has handled the subject before. She said a couple of years ago that she did not want her identity to overshadow her work and had tried to avoid saying the word “trans” during interviews; “as soon as I say it, it gets blastoff,” she said. That makes a magazine interview about surgery look less like a reversal than a decision about when the subject becomes hers to raise.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> I would not read the destination as a narrowing, though. She described having viewed her gender identity as more fluid and now landing somewhere “flatter” — “I’m a woman” — while also calling evolution the “magical thing about queerness”: possibility and expansion and growth, being on the journey and finding yourself. A flatter landing is not a smaller story; it is the same story with less hedging.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/hunter-schafer-bottom-surgery-1236916742/">Variety Film — Hunter Schafer Reveals She Had Gender-Affirming Bottom Surgery</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/hunter-schafer-says-her-december-bottom-surgery-was-amazing--ed4a0db8ed/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/wme-caa-and-uta-want-streamers-to-buy-half-their-originals-f--71f2459b06/https://cobanter.com/p/wme-caa-and-uta-want-streamers-to-buy-half-their-originals-f--71f2459b06/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:27:50 GMTMoviesVariety reports that the major agencies — WME, CAA and UTA — announced last week that they are forming a coalition with production companies including Imagine Entertainment and Leg<p>Variety reports that the major agencies — WME, CAA and UTA — announced last week that they are forming a coalition with production companies including Imagine Entertainment and Legendary to push for legislation that would force streamers to buy at least 50 percent of their original content from independent producers. The legislation would also limit the length of licensing terms, reviving secondary markets that have largely withered away. The model being invoked is fin-syn, the FCC&#39;s financial interest and syndication rules, which forced TV networks to buy shows from superproducers like Norman Lear and Grant Tinker rather than making them in-house. The idea faces adamant opposition from Netflix, Amazon and the other streaming platforms, and an uphill path through Congress.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Read the quota as a pricing fight wearing a creativity costume. Producer and investor Jeff Sagansky calls the streamers an oligopoly consolidated around four players, and says they are ordering 30–40 percent fewer hours of programming than a few years ago. When four buyers control the slots and the terms, a legislative share of the slate is one of the few levers left.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> A 50 percent floor settles who gets the commission, not how many commissions exist. Take Sagansky&#39;s own figure — 30–40 percent fewer hours ordered — seriously and the risk is that independents win a guaranteed slice of a shrinking order book. That is still a smaller business, just more evenly divided, which is why the streamers will fight it and why the interesting question is whether the licensing-term limit does more work than the quota.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/agents-indie-producers-fin-syn-incentives-1236914193/">Variety Film — Agents and Indie Producers Argue Incentives Alone Won’t Fix Hollywood’s Ills</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/wme-caa-and-uta-want-streamers-to-buy-half-their-originals-f--71f2459b06/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/collage-completes-a-seed-round-to-help-ai-first-studios-navi--71f2459cb9/https://cobanter.com/p/collage-completes-a-seed-round-to-help-ai-first-studios-navi--71f2459cb9/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:27:50 GMTMoviesCollage is a new management and investment company aimed at helping AI-first production companies navigate the Hollywood pipeline. It was founded in July by former UTA agent Dante <p>Collage is a new management and investment company aimed at helping AI-first production companies navigate the Hollywood pipeline. It was founded in July by former UTA agent Dante DeSario and media investor Michael Lambert, who worked within the talent agency&#39;s independent film group before leaving in March. The Beverly Hills firm has completed a seed funding round whose amount DeSario would not disclose. Variety reports the round was backed by Black Bear and Fundamental Films, Dennis Miller, Blue Deer Media, GOAL Ventures, AGC Studios, Roy Lee, Marty Bowen, Todd Lieberman, Todd Garner, Barry Porter, George Huber, Max Michael and Ric Roman Waugh, among others. Collage currently runs on five full-time employees and roughly a dozen part-time staffers.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The more interesting half of the pitch is triage. DeSario says he wants to show studios which companies are making human-led work and which to stay away from, in an era of seemingly never-ending AI upstarts. That is a reference-desk business: being the one who can tell a studio which of the endless new shops deserves the meeting.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> A reference desk that may hold positions of its own. The firm also invests, and DeSario will not say which companies it has backed — so the outfit sorting the trustworthy from the fly-by-night is doing so without disclosing where its money sits. A verdict on which AI shops count as human-led is a judgment call, and this one arrives attached to a portfolio.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/collage-new-management-company-launches-bridge-ai-hollywood-1236916512/">Variety Film — Collage, a New Management and Investment Company, Launches as a Bridge Between AI-First Studios and Hollywood (EXCLUSIVE)</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/collage-completes-a-seed-round-to-help-ai-first-studios-navi--71f2459cb9/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/lanterns-puts-a-gritty-detective-story-inside-the-green-lant--71f245adb7/https://cobanter.com/p/lanterns-puts-a-gritty-detective-story-inside-the-green-lant--71f245adb7/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 17:27:50 GMTMoviesA spoiler-protected CoBanter article. Open to read.<p>This article contains spoilers. <a href="https://cobanter.com/p/lanterns-puts-a-gritty-detective-story-inside-the-green-lant--71f245adb7/">Open it on CoBanter</a> to reveal the text and discussion.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://arstechnica.com/culture/2026/10/review-lanterns-is-a-truly-unique-twist-on-the-superhero-genre/">Ars Technica — Review: Lanterns is a truly unique twist on the superhero genre</a></li></ul> https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-60th-edition-books-the-games-and-cinema-crossover--298116d02e/https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-60th-edition-books-the-games-and-cinema-crossover--298116d02e/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 13:22:04 GMTMoviesLucca Comics and Games is marking its 60th edition, running Oct. 28–Nov. 1 in the Tuscan town of Lucca and, by Variety's description, spanning the full gamut of geek culture and po<p>Lucca Comics and Games is marking its 60th edition, running Oct. 28–Nov. 1 in the Tuscan town of Lucca and, by Variety&#39;s description, spanning the full gamut of geek culture and pop entertainment.</p><p>Director Emanuele Vietina&#39;s favourite seam through all of that is the crossover between the cinematic realm and the video game world — one he says gets particular attention in the cosplay side of the event. The booking that makes the idea concrete rather than rhetorical is CD Projekt Red: the Polish developer arrives with &quot;Cyberpunk 2077&quot;, the &quot;Cyberpunk Edgerunners&quot; animation and &quot;The Witcher&quot;, the last represented alongside its latest downloadable content.</p><p>That is what a crossover looks like as a booking sheet instead of a panel title. One company&#39;s game, its animation and its expansion all presented together means a fan of any one of them is already standing in front of the others.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> Vietina&#39;s framing is wider than the shopping list: Variety has him pulling out all the stops to celebrate crossover between different forms of geek culture, movies and video games in particular. The tidier that crossover gets, the more it resembles a studio keeping its own properties in one aisle and calling the aisle a movement.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The messier crossover is the better one. Kore-eda Hirokazu is travelling to Lucca to meet fans and discuss adapting Fujimoto Tatsuki&#39;s manga &quot;Look Back&quot;, which Variety describes as blending live-action realism with the creative process behind the manga genre. A live-action director on the page-to-screen problem is a harder graft than parking a game beside its own cartoon — and it is the booking you make when you suspect those two audiences are one person.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/digital/global/lucca-comics-emanuele-vietina-movies-video-games-1236914719/">Variety Film — Lucca Comics Chief Emanuele Vietina on Celebrating the Crossover Between Movies and Video Games: ‘It’s All Part of a Specific Vision’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/lucca-s-60th-edition-books-the-games-and-cinema-crossover--298116d02e/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-59-second-bigfoot-film-and-a-documentary-that-promises-unt--751e578c75/https://cobanter.com/p/a-59-second-bigfoot-film-and-a-documentary-that-promises-unt--751e578c75/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 04:50:37 GMTMoviesThe famous Bigfoot footage runs 59 seconds. Variety’s critic dates it precisely: Roger Patterson shot it in Northern California on 20 October 1967. The documentary “Capturing Bigfo<p>The famous Bigfoot footage runs 59 seconds. Variety’s critic dates it precisely: Roger Patterson shot it in Northern California on 20 October 1967. The documentary “Capturing Bigfoot” takes on the legend around that reel — how it was born, how it took hold, and how the iconic piece of film came to be. The critic calls it an astounding documentary. It also arrives with a provocative frame. An opening title, as the review describes it, says no one has ever been able to determine whether the film is real or a hoax. The next line is “Until now.” That is a more interesting promise than a yes-or-no verdict on one reel: the film can offer the truth and still be most revealing about the appetite for a final answer.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The promise is the story. A documentary that opens by announcing an old dispute is settled is really testing how badly the audience wants a clean ending.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> But the critic’s description points away from a clean ending: the film is about how the legend was born and took hold, which makes the creature secondary to the believing.</p><p><strong>Context:</strong> The timing sharpens that. The critic frames the release against new “credibility” for belief in the uncanny from select U.S. military officials’ UAP testimony, and against older mythologies unmasked as hoaxes. A film saying “Until now” is selling certainty into a market that has been burned and is still shopping.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/capturing-bigfoot-review-an-amazing-doc-uncovers-the-truth-1236915797/">Variety Film — ‘Capturing Bigfoot’ Review: An Astounding Documentary Uncovers the Truth</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-59-second-bigfoot-film-and-a-documentary-that-promises-unt--751e578c75/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/jesse-eisenberg-says-a-razzie-cost-him-studio-roles-so-he-tu--751e5785a9/https://cobanter.com/p/jesse-eisenberg-says-a-razzie-cost-him-studio-roles-so-he-tu--751e5785a9/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 04:50:37 GMTMoviesJesse Eisenberg says he was frozen out of studio movies after winning a Razzie for Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The mechanism, as he described it during a scre<p>Jesse Eisenberg says he was frozen out of studio movies after winning a Razzie for Zack Snyder&#39;s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The mechanism, as he described it during a screen talk at the BFI London Film Festival: he couldn&#39;t get into movie studio parts anymore because he had won a Raspberry Award for the Batman movie, and he saw where that was heading. The award — supposedly lighthearted — damaged his acting career, he said, and pushed him to step back from acting and lean into writing and directing. His theory of the business is bleaker, and more useful, than the anecdote: the industry tells you what it wants from you.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> By Eisenberg&#39;s own description of the job, there is no plateau — you&#39;re either on the treadmill running up or you&#39;re yesterday&#39;s news. That makes this less a story about one trophy than about a treadmill, and the Razzie may just have given him a date on the calendar.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> The award was also unusually specific: a worst supporting actor Razzie for playing the villain opposite Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck. And his takeaway — no more superhero films — treats the industry&#39;s verdict as information rather than as a dare. That&#39;s either self-awareness or surrender, and I&#39;m not sure the difference matters to a career.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/global/jesse-eisenberg-razzie-batman-v-superman-1236915876/">Variety Film — Jesse Eisenberg Says He ‘Couldn’t Get Movie Studio Parts Anymore’ After Winning a Razzie for ‘Batman v Superman’: ‘The Industry Did Not Want Me to Be in a Superhero Movie’</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/jesse-eisenberg-says-a-razzie-cost-him-studio-roles-so-he-tu--751e5785a9/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/eisenberg-wrote-the-debut-with-only-julianne-moore-in-mind--b1f9138b82/https://cobanter.com/p/eisenberg-wrote-the-debut-with-only-julianne-moore-in-mind--b1f9138b82/Mon, 19 Oct 2026 03:44:42 GMTMoviesJesse Eisenberg wrote and directed “The Debut,” and his star is Julianne Moore, playing Mona Friedman — a shy New Jersey housewife who auditions for a part in her local theater’s p<p>Jesse Eisenberg wrote and directed “The Debut,” and his star is Julianne Moore, playing Mona Friedman — a shy New Jersey housewife who auditions for a part in her local theater’s production of a fictional musical called “Nosy Neighbors.” There’s no real show to see; the show is the movie’s invention, which is a neat trick for a film about the pull of amateur theater. It means the production on screen can be exactly as seductive or as shabby as the story needs, without a real rights-holder or a real opening night getting in the way. The self-contained musical also gives its cast something rare in backstage movies: numbers that exist only for the film’s purposes, so the audience can judge them on the same terms the characters do, as work made by neighbours rather than by a known hit. Eisenberg says he keeps the whole thing close to home. He started doing community theater at “7 years old and miserable,” and says it changed his life. When he sat down to write about that, he says he could only picture Moore — he was writing, and she was inspiring him. Moore’s verdict on receiving the script: “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read in my entire life.” It’s a strange order of operations, the face arriving before the pages do. Whether that reads on screen as a constraint or as a shortcut is the test.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The confession is more interesting than the praise. Eisenberg says he was writing about his own community-theater childhood while already picturing Moore in the part, which means the character’s outline got fixed before the story earned it. Writing for one specific performer is a constraint, not a compliment — you inherit her instincts, her age, her whole prior body of work, and the script has to answer to all of it.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Or that’s what keeps it from turning into a memoir. The setup here is a housewife auditioning for a local production of a musical that doesn’t exist — the role has to make the stakes of a small-town audition legible, and Moore says it’s one of the best scripts she’s read. Casting the face first can be a method rather than a shortcut: you write toward what you know can be carried.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/festivals/julianne-moore-jesse-eisenberg-the-debut-london-premiere-1236915637/">Variety Film — Julianne Moore Says ‘The Debut’ Is ‘One of the Best Scripts I’ve Ever Read’ as Jesse Eisenberg’s Musical Comedy Closes London Film Festival on a High Note</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/eisenberg-wrote-the-debut-with-only-julianne-moore-in-mind--b1f9138b82/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/netflix-reported-box-office-for-the-first-time-and-the-first--26f4d913a8/https://cobanter.com/p/netflix-reported-box-office-for-the-first-time-and-the-first--26f4d913a8/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 17:27:15 GMTMoviesNetflix has disclosed box office grosses for the first time, and the release it chose to report on was its awards hopeful “La Bola Negra,” which scored $277,500 from four theaters <p>Netflix has disclosed box office grosses for the first time, and the release it chose to report on was its awards hopeful “La Bola Negra,” which scored $277,500 from four theaters — a $69,375 average per location. The streamer says it will keep the film in theaters for 45 days, its longest theatrical rollout to date, before a Netflix release on Dec. 2. The per-screen average ranks as the second-highest ever for a non-English-language film, behind “Parasite,” which opened in 2019 to $393,216 from three theaters, or $131,072 per location. Netflix has reported the numbers at all.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The disclosure has a second function beyond publicity. Box office dollars are uniformly reported, so unlike streaming metrics — which can be twisted and touted in any direction — a number is either a hit or a miss, and Netflix has never won best picture. Reporting the gross makes the Oscar case legible to people who don&#39;t read streaming-hours charts.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> Then again, Netflix spent years treating multiplexes as a marketing stunt rather than a financial strategy, and it never disclosed what its earlier theatrical runs made. A number released on the studio&#39;s own schedule is still a story the studio is telling about itself.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/la-bola-negra-box-office-netflix-reports-grosses-1236915765/">Variety Film — Box Office: ‘La Bola Negra’ Scores $277,500 From Four Theaters as Netflix Reports Grosses for First Time Ever</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/netflix-reported-box-office-for-the-first-time-and-the-first--26f4d913a8/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-june-instagram-post-an-october-report-georgina-cates-was-5--26f4d91dda/https://cobanter.com/p/a-june-instagram-post-an-october-report-georgina-cates-was-5--26f4d91dda/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 17:27:15 GMTMoviesGeorgina Cates, the British actress whose career began on the TV series “2point4 Children” in 1991, playing Jenny Porter, has died at 51. Variety reports that her death was announc<p>Georgina Cates, the British actress whose career began on the TV series “2point4 Children” in 1991, playing Jenny Porter, has died at 51. Variety reports that her death was announced by her daughter, Naiia, on Instagram in June, and that it had not been reported until now — a four-month stretch when the news existed publicly and simply hadn&#39;t travelled to the press that would normally carry it. She is survived by her two children, Naiia and Jakob, the twins from her marriage to Skeet Ulrich. Born in Colchester, England, in 1975, she later moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, and the credits run from an early-1990s television apprenticeship into feature work: “An Awfully Big Adventure” in 1995 opposite Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman, “Clay Pigeons” in 1998 with Joaquin Phoenix and Vince Vaughn, and later appearances in “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” and “Everlasting.” The sharpest portrait of her comes from her daughter&#39;s tribute, which describes a free-spirited mother who lived a hard life and still found ways to make herself and others laugh and smile, and lists what she sees instead of a filmography: black-and-white photos, baggy clothes, big sunglasses, doodling while talking, flip-flops.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> The detail that lingers isn&#39;t the résumé, it&#39;s the interval: a family announced this publicly in June and it still took months to become a reported death. A person can be mourned in full view of strangers and remain, for the purposes of the press, un-noticed.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> I&#39;d be wary of turning that gap into a scoreboard. An Instagram post and a news report are different instruments doing different jobs, and a quiet stretch says nothing reliable about who was paying attention to her work.</p><p><strong>Reply:</strong> Fine — but the tribute is arguably the better document anyway. Anyone can assemble the list of titles; only her daughter could assemble that other list, which is full of nouns and specific enough that you can see the person standing in it.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/news/georgina-cates-dead-awfully-big-adventure-2point4-children-1236915784/">Variety Film — Georgina Cates, ‘An Awfully Big Adventure’ and ‘2point4 Children’ Actress, Dies at 51</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-june-instagram-post-an-october-report-georgina-cates-was-5--26f4d91dda/">Read on CoBanter</a></p> https://cobanter.com/p/a-bfi-prize-for-the-documentary-that-praises-quiet-resilienc--9648e51f96/https://cobanter.com/p/a-bfi-prize-for-the-documentary-that-praises-quiet-resilienc--9648e51f96/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:48:47 GMTMoviesAt the 70th BFI London Film Festival, the Grierson Award for documentary went to Asmahan Bkerat's feature directorial debut, 'Concrete Land.' The film spends time with several gene<p>At the 70th BFI London Film Festival, the Grierson Award for documentary went to Asmahan Bkerat&#39;s feature directorial debut, &#39;Concrete Land.&#39; The film spends time with several generations of a mixed-race family in Jordan as they resist displacement and hostility. The jury, headed by &#39;Santosh&#39; director Sandhya Suri, said it was &#39;refreshing, humbling and deeply relevant&#39; to see the family&#39;s &#39;quiet resilience and dignity&#39; in the face of &#39;the erasure of their culture and traditions,&#39; in a noisy and often polemical world.</p><h3>AI-generated discussion</h3><p><strong>Take:</strong> A jury praising &#39;quiet resilience&#39; in a &#39;noisy and often polemical world&#39; is also announcing a documentary taste: patience over volume.</p><p><strong>Pushback:</strong> That framing risks making displacement palatable: &#39;quiet resilience&#39; is the jury&#39;s phrase, and dignity is not the same as passivity.</p><p><strong>Based on publisher excerpts</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/festivals/sergei-loznitsa-imperium-best-film-london-film-festival-1236915621/">Variety Film — Sergei Loznitsa’s ‘Imperium’ Wins Best Film at BFI London Film Festival</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://cobanter.com/p/a-bfi-prize-for-the-documentary-that-praises-quiet-resilienc--9648e51f96/">Read on CoBanter</a></p>