The Right Movie At The Right Time: Watching ‘A Ghost Story’ While Grieving (Welcome toThe Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything. In this edition: how a powerful 2017 film helped one writer grapple with tragedy. This post contains spoilers forA Ghost Story.) People watch movies for all kinds of reasons. For entertainment, for work, just to kill some time. Sometimes, though, the magic of a great movie can work as comfort for pains big and small, like a cinematic salve for what ails you....

The Script For Dog Day Afternoon Was Packed With Al Pacino Improv “Dog Day Afternoon” is one of the greatest achievements of naturalistic 1970s filmmaking. Taking place over the course of one sweltering summer day, the filmis based on the true storyof Sonny Wortzik, whose attempt to rob a Brooklyn bank devolves into a media circus, hostage situation, and law enforcement standoff. Al Pacino’s tour de force performance anchors the film with a razor-sharp tension and wit, alongside an equally intense supporting cast of John Cazale, Chris Sarandon, Charles Durning, and more....

This Week In Trailers: This Is Football, Kings Of Beer, Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy, I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth V. Michelle Carter Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising?...

Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Jessica Chastain And More Get Tough In ‘Lawless’ Character Posters I don’t necessarily love this current trend of churning out character posters for every single actor in an ensemble cast, but when the line-up is as good as this one, I can’t complain. Seven new character posters have dropped forJohn Hillcoat’s Prohibition-era thrillerLawless, showing starsTom Hardy,Shia LaBeouf,Jessica Chastain,Jason Clarke,Gary Oldman,Guy Pearce, andMia Wasikowskaeach trying their best to give off a tough-guy (or girl) glower....

Warner Bros. Moving ‘The Hobbit’ Out Of New Zealand Thanks To Labor Disputes This is a surprising turn of events forThe Hobbit. When a small coalition of actors' unions in New Zealand and Australia pushed actors' guilds across the world to boycott work on the films, citing an unfair residuals arrangement,Peter Jacksonresponded by threatening to move the production to Eastern Europe. But that would never happen, right? The organizations wouldn’t push away a huge chunk of work like the twoHobbitfilms by holding firm to a set of demands for which the production and backers at Warner Bros....

Why Won’t People Let Former Disney/Teen Idols Grow Up? (Welcome toThe Soapbox,the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything.) It’s always fascinating to me when something comes out and the reviews are immediately polarizing. As a life-long fan of both Josh Peck and Hilary Duff, I really wanted to see the new spin-off series “How I Met Your Father,” in which they both star. I did my typical perusal of entertainment critic Twitter reactions to see how people were feeling, and regardless of positive or negative reviews, I kept seeing the same comments over and over again....

You Season 3 Ending Explained: Joe’s Marriage Goes Down In Flames Suburbia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. When “You” ended its sophomore season by shipping its serial-killing romantic off to the shiny California suburb of Madre Linda, we all knew it wouldn’t last. Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) may have stalked his way into Love Quinn’s (Victoria Pedretti) life, but the second he saw the real her, his love faded away....

‘Ad Astra’ Venice Film Festival Special Look: In Space, No One Can Hear Brad Pitt’s Existential Crisis James Gray’s mysterious sci-fi dramaAd Astrais set to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, and in anticipation of that premiere, 20th Century Fox is unveiling a special look at the film. TheAd Astraspecial look focuses onBrad Pitt’s astronaut Roy McBride, who is sent on a mission to find his missing father (Tommy Lee Jones)....

‘All Things Must Pass’ Trailer: Colin Hanks Chronicles The Rise And Fall Of Tower Records The idea of nostalgia for a record store is probably not even a thing for audiences under a certain age, but to anyone who sought out new and unusual music and all the cultural attachments that came with it, the bestTower Recordslocations around the world, from Los Angeles to new York, London, and Tokyo, were regular stops....

‘Haywire’ Star Gina Carano Cast In Another Action Film, ‘In The Blood’ Steven Soderbergh sawGina Caranofight and decided to build a movie around her. The result wasHaywire, released earlier this year. And now it seems that other filmmakers have seenHaywire, and want to make more movies around Carano. The former MMA fighter has been cast in a new action thriller calledIn the Blood, which sounds a bit like a gender-reversed riff onTaken....

‘Hitman’ Filmmaker Xavier Gens Explains Why He Turned Down A Marvel Movie Marvel Studioshas no shortage of directors who would gladly work for them — and vice versa, as there’s no shortage of directors who would quickly turn them down. Directing a Marvel movie might offer a great boost for many filmmakers, butHitmandirectorXavier Gensdoesn’t want to be one of them. The French director behind genre films likeFrontier(s)and Gareth Evans' currently-airing crime seriesGangs of Londonrevealed that he was in discussions with Marvel to direct a project, but turned down the studio after he realized he “would be there to take care of only the direction of the actors....

‘Sleight’ Director JD Dillard On How He Went From Bad Robot Receptionist To Sundance Sensation Sleighthits theaters this week, andI loved this film when I saw it at Sundance last year. A few weeks back I sat down with directorJ.D. Dillardfor an interview. We talk about how he started as a receptionist at J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot, worked onStar Wars: The Force Awakens, plus how the idea ofSleightcame about, the fun and horrors of shooting a film on a super small budget, and his filmmaker aspirations....

‘The Flash’ Movie May Have The Scarlet Speedster Teaming Up With Cyborg One of the chief complaints aboutBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justicehas been a convoluted, unnecessarily complex story. But from my perspective, one of the more enjoyable and promising elements of the film were the seeds planted for the movies that will feature the rest of the heroes who will formJustice League. Even though the little teases of heroes like Aquaman, The Flash and Cyborg aren’t pulled off as smoothly as the movie-stealing appearance of Wonder Woman, they certainly piqued my curiosity....