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The impact of Tony Hawk on the world of pro skateboarding video games is quite understated, and the series is widely considered the best skateboarding video game series out there. The series debuted with its first entry back in 1999 for the PlayStation 1, under the alias of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.

However, ever since the launch of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (back in 2020), the series has seen a slump of sorts, with no mainline titles or remasters being released to date. However, things could change very soon, and the revival of the legendary Tony Hawk franchise is all but a matter of time.

Tyshawn Jones hints at a possible, upcoming Tony Hawk release Tyshawn Jones expects a new Tony Hawk to release soon | Image Credit: Activision

Speaking at the Breakfast Club Podcast, professional skater Tyshawn Jones mentioned that a new Tony Hawk game might be in the works.

I...

Though the Criterion Collection may be taking their beloved closet on the road to celebrate their 40th anniversary, only the lucky few have been able to step foot in the actual hallowed space. Now, renaissance man Bill Hader can say he’s done so twice. The actor, writer, and director behind the hit HBO series “Barry” first entered the Criterion Closet in 2011. Dressed for the occasion with an orange shirt sporting the Kaibyō from the poster for the 1977 Japanese horror film “House,” Hader drew selections such as Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s grotesque “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,” which he referred to at the time as “a great date movie.”

Referencing this pick in his latest video, Hader displayed “Salò” once again and said, “It is not a good date movie. Just want to clear that up.”

After making a few jokes at the expense...

With nearly 1,700 titles in their catalog, it’s hard to discern where exactly to start when exploring the Criterion Collection. To celebrate their 40th anniversary, the company has now made it a bit easier as they’ve unveiled CC40, a 40-film, 49-disc collection retailing for around $640 that is now the new go-to gift for that budding cinephile in your life.

“This monumental forty-film box set celebrates forty years of the Criterion Collection by gathering an electrifying mix of classic and contemporary films, and presenting them with all their special features and essays in a deluxe clothbound, slipcased edition,” they note. “CC40’s eclectic selection includes the releases most frequently chosen by the hundreds of filmmakers, actors, writers, and other movie-loving luminaries who have visited Criterion over the years, as documented in our popular Closet Picks video series. Neither a historical survey nor a top-forty compilation, this exciting, personal, unpredictable anthology...

In collaboration with the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Paris Theater has announced it will be presenting the New York “Academy Museum Branch Select” screening series starting April 3. Each of the 18 branches of the Academy has selected a film for the series that represents a major milestone in the evolution of filmmaking. Some of the films included are “Fantastic Mr.Fox,” “Showgirls,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Nashville,” “Yi Yi,” “In the Mood for Love” and “Citizen Kane.”

Screenings will take place on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 12 p.m. at both the Paris Theater and the Academy Museum. Tickets will be available March 28 on the Paris Theater and Academy Museum websites respectively.

Cord Jefferson to Receive Wgaw’s Paul Selvin Award

Cord Jefferson will receive the Writers Guild of America West’s 2024 Paul Selvin Award for penning the screenplay for “American Fiction.” He will receive the honor at the 2024 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday,...

The East Asia Film Festival Ireland (Eaffi) and the Irish Film Institute (Ifi) are delighted to announce the programme for the eighth edition of the festival, which will take place this year from Thursday, March 7th to Sunday, March 10th, bringing works from prominent and

emerging writers and directors from diverse cultural and social backgrounds across East Asian cinema to audiences in Ireland. These films reflect on individual and communal experiences, and observe and explore life and relationships in an eclectic mix of fiction, documentary, and classic titles. At the programme's centre is a season of rare screenings by auteur filmmaker Edward Yang (1947–2007) – four masterworks from one of the most iconic figures, alongside Hou Hsiao-Hsien, of the Taiwanese New Wave film movement of the early 1980s.

Each of the four special screenings will be introduced by Taiwanese film producer Chuti Chang. They will be:

A Confucian Confusion , which charts the...

Taiwan and India in the spotlight at the 30th Vesoul Iff of Asian Cinema

The 30th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema will feature 92 films, including 52 never-before-seen films from 29 countries, under the banner of commitment!

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Iranian director with 60 international awards to his credit, is President of the Jury. Other members include Taiwanese director Zero Chou, winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin 2007, Fatemed Motamed-Arya, the most awarded Iranian actress in the history of Iranian cinema, and Japanese actor Shogen, cinema ambassador at the Sea-Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival.

The 17 films in the fiction and documentary competitions come from China, Korea, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal and Taiwan. Four are French premieres, six European premieres, five international premieres and two world premieres.

Feature Film Competition :

China: All Ears by Liu Jiayin – China (Tibet): The Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden – Korea: Work to...

Film at Lincoln Center is unveiling an Edward Yang retrospective to honor the late filmmaker into the New Year.

Titled “Desire/Expectations: The Films of Edward Yang,” the curated series includes screenings of Yang’s “Yi Yi,” “A Brighter Summer Day,” “Taipei Story,” and the world premiere of a new 4K restoration of “Mahjong.” The Film at Lincoln Center series additionally debuts a new restoration of “A Confucian Confusion.”

IndieWire now reveals that the series, which kicks off December 22, will extend its run through January 9 with new additional screenings, including “Mahjong” in 4K. Also, Yang’s widow, pianist Kaili Peng, who composed the score for “Yi Yi” and is heard playing the piano throughout the film, will introduce the 6:30 p.m. screening of that film on December 22 at 6:30 p.m. That screening will follow a special opening reception at the Furman Gallery at 5:00 p.m.

“Desire/Expectations...

To the surprise of some and the delight of many, the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s drama Yi Yi (2000) has topped the The Hollywood Reporter critics’ list of the “Best 50 Films of the 21st Century (So Far).” Helping put the film in context, Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 44, whose 2021 film Drive My Car won the best international film Oscar (and also lands at #19 on THR‘s list), offers a personal statement on what Yang’s masterpiece has meant to him and a generation of Asian filmmakers.

Urban life in Asia, especially in the wake of World War II, has become markedly Westernized. For the post-war generation, to which Edward Yang and my parents belonged, the richness of material and spiritual gains that came from this process must have felt like a stroke of luck. But ultimately, the trauma of this historical rupture has also been passed down through the generations,...

Canadian drama series “Streams Flow From a River” will debut in Canada on Super Channel, available on Apple TV and Prime Video Channels, on April 1.

The series is in the Canneseries short format competition and will have its international premiere at the festival on April 18.

Produced by Canadian scripted production company Fae Pictures, “Streams Flow From a River” (6 x 14′) is the first Canadian series from an all-Asian writers’ room and 75% East Asian crew led by producer Shant Joshi. Joshi is one of MipTV’s Producers to Watch 2023 and will be attending Mip-Canneseries Connections event.

Created by writer and director Christopher Yip (“Fish Boy”), the series brings forward the invisible struggles that Chinese Canadian immigrant families face while trying to make a home in the West. With nods to Asian cinema films like Edward Yang’s “Yi Yi” and BBC drama “I May Destroy You,” “Streams Flow From a River” revolves around the Chow family,...

Winner of the Ecumenical Jury Prize and easily among the top films at this year’s Berlinale, Lila Avilés‘ sophomore feature Tótem had already racked up tons of world sales and now just before its North American premiere at the New Directors/New Films, the Sideshow and Janus Films folks swopped in for North American rights. Variety reports that the film will be released later in the year – positioning it as Mexico’s possible entry for the Oscars. We were especially big on the film with our Nicholas Bell comparing the four star film to Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders and Taiwan master filmmaker –

“Avilés injects an unexpected amount of observational humor while also channeling something like Edward Yang’s Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000), where a child’s awareness in the situation of caring for a loved one is limited by their lack of worldly comprehension.”…

Continue reading.

Edward Yang’s retrospective is the highlight of this year’s Five Flavours. For decades, he was known as a key representative of the Taiwanese New Wave and a master of world cinema but – strangely enough – he is still waiting to be fully discovered. The program was long in the making, as Yang’s films were being digitally restored. Now, for the first time in Poland, the festival can present his retrospective to the public.

Edward Yang shows the world of the upper-middle class in Taipei – the city he portraits as conflicted, chaotic, filled with chance encounters and surprising coincidences. New skyscrapers contrast with makeshift houses, extreme materialism coexists with a deep longing for the sense of belonging, American restaurants and clubs go hand in hand with traditional stalls offering cheap, local snacks. In every one of his films, Yang focuses on the images of modern love and the hope...

Back in 1998, Chen Yi-wen was considered Edward Yang’s protege, having acted in “A Bright Summer Day”, “ A Confucian Confusion” and “Yi Yi”. As such, and also because his first shorts were quite promising, his feature debut was actually quite expected, with him highlighting his confidence in the best fashion, also due to the rather demanding story he penned.

The script revolves around several people, whose lives intermingle. Kai and his one-night stand Jiajia, who seems to like him more than he likes her, are unemployed, and decide to steal a car. Novice filmmaker Shaoqun is in a relationship with his producer, gorgeous Snow, who is also having an affair with her boss, Liu, whom he pressures to invest money in her boyfriend’s movie. Hua Ge is a hitman working for Master Xu, a boss who is quite demanding about the way his food is prepared and served, as...

A scrapbook collection of serene, observational moments in search of a story, “Blood” runs deep, but only with obscure meaning, so opaque at times that its essence feels unreachable. Writer-director Bradley Rust Gray’s first feature in a decade offers some modest rewards to patient viewers up for a challenge, but this good-natured study of a young widow’s new chapter in life is finally too understated to leave a memorable trace.

Premiering in this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance, “Blood” is exactly the type of unstructured, casually paced indie that requires the immersive experience of the movie theater: dark, big and distraction-free. The irony, of course, is that’s a hard sell these days to spectacle-seeking ticket buyers. Beyond the festival circuit, the film could find a small, committed audience on streaming platforms. Those captivated by the filmmaker’s previous, similarly dispositioned films like “The Exploding Girl” ought to turn up,...

Alan Kim is one of the biggest breakouts of Oscar season thanks to his role in Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari,” and now his post-“Minari” career is taking shape. As reported by TV Line, the rising child actor has landed a pivotal role on the second season of Comedy Central’s “Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens.” The publication adds: “In flashbacks, Kim will guest star as the young version of Nora’s dad Wally (played in the present day by cast member Bd Wong).”

Kim has received critical acclaim for his performance in “Minari,” in which he stars opposite Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Noel Kate Cho, Youn Yuh-jung, and Will Patton. Together with his cast members, Kim is nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture. Kim won the Critics Choice Award for Best Young Performer, and he’ll compete at the BAFTA...

Last February, just before the pandemic upended virtually everything about how the film industry operates, “Parasite” made history at the Academy Awards. The ingenious South Korean thriller became the first international film to “overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles” and win best picture, as director Bong Joon Ho phrased it at the podium.

But that was just one of the many barriers to “Parasite’s” potential success. Asia — which has produced some of the world’s most gifted directors — has had a particularly difficult time being recognized with the Academy. Hard to believe, but when Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was nominated for best picture in 2000, it had been a full 45 years since an Asian film had won Oscar’s foreign language prize (that film was “Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto”).

European movies do fine in what’s now known as the “international feature” category — especially those from the four “Figs” markets,...

The Taipei Film Festival kicked off as a live, physical event Thursday, making it likely the first in the world to occur in-person since the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus — albeit without international guests.

Scheduled for June 25 to July 11, the festival will occur ahead of Fid Marseille, which will take place with in-person screenings from July 22-26 and has also previously claimed the milestone.

Planning a festival in the midst of a global pandemic was a process plagued by unknowns and sudden about-faces, Taipei’s senior program assistant manager Stephanie Su told Variety.

“We weren’t sure whether we could even have a physical festival a couple of months ago. We had many plan Bs and plan Cs going at the same time,” she said. She explained that the uncertainty had also made it particularly difficult to cinch sponsors. “It was a really bizarre work experience. We were kind...

“A Sun” is another high-quality production of Taiwanese Studio Mandarin Vision (“The Great Buddha+” 2017). The two and a half-hour long crime drama directed by Mong-Hong Chung (“Godspeed” 2016) has been selected for the Netflix catalog and was the big winner of the 2019 Golden Horse Film Festival including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Leading Actor.

Coming from the homeland of the great Edward Yang, the story incorporates many similar topics such as broken families, lost youth, and the ultimate road to redemption. It all starts with a gritty scene of violence in which A-Ho, played by Wu Chien-Ho (“Xiao Mei” 2018), attacks a young man in a neon trenched back ally store of a dark city. As a result, he is sent away to a juvenile detention center and his father A-Wen decides to cut ties with him and solely focuses on his driving teacher job and the eldest son,...

With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.

To fill the void left by the absence of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, this column is currently dedicated to films that premiered at the festival over the course of seven decades.

Trying to indicate the scale of a movie so immense and full of life that it can’t possibly be described (only experienced), the British critic Nigel Andrews wrote that calling “‘Yi Yi’ a three-hour Taiwanese family drama is like calling ‘Citizen Kane’ a film about a newspaper.” It’s a clever line, but those who haven’t seen Edward Yang’s final masterpiece could easily mistake it for a cop-out. At a passing glance, it seems like the kind of thing someone in Andrews’ position might say when...

The English title of Gu Xiaogang’s debut film is “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains” which is also the name of one the great treasures of Chinese art: a 14th-century landscape painting by Yuan Dynasty master Huang Gongwang. Especially from a first-timer, reaching for an association this lofty for what is ostensibly an intimate family drama could seem like hubris, but the gentleness and genuineness of Gu’s intentions surely offset that charge a little. And the film’s restful charms, at the very least, hugely improve the eponymous masterpiece’s cinematic legacy, given that it was last ignominiously used as the MacGuffin in 2013’s infamously awful spy caper “Switch.”

The title is not simply borrowed interest: The film emulates the painting in a deeply respectful way, in setting, but also in its lengthy, episodic sweep and its deceptive, loose-yet-controlled aesthetic, which evokes the airy yet precise strokes of Huang’s inkbrush.

The BBC Culture annual critics’ poll has become one of the most anticipated film lists over the last three years. After asking critics to weigh in on the best American films (“Citizen Kane” topped the list), the best films of the 21st century (“Mulholland Drive” in first), and the best comedy movies (“Some Like It Hot” crowned the best), the BBC Culture has turned this year to the 100 greatest achievements in foreign-language film.

This year’s list was curated from top 10 lists from 209 film critics across 43 countries, including IndieWire’s own Kate Erbland and Christian Blauvelt. BBC Culture awarded 10 points to each critics’ first-ranked film, 9 for the second-ranked, and so on down to one. The finalized top 100 list was curated based on this point system.

Sitting on the top of the BBC Culture list is Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.” The film’s breathtaking scope and intimate character work has...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: In honor of Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird,” what is the best coming-of-age movie ever made?

Siddhant Adlakha (@SidizenKane), Birth.Movies.Death.

While it may not fit the western paradigm of a traditional coming of age film (neither a high school setting nor teenage angst or confusion find themselves the focus), “Lion” holds the distinction of being a rare modern movie that gets to the root of key questions of dual identity, questions that will only become more prominent in the age of globalism. It’s the most extreme version of having your feet in two cultures; Saroo Brierley (Sunny Pawar, Dev Patel) finds himself...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: In honor of “The Florida Project,” which has just started its platform release across the country, what is the greatest child performance in a film?

Jordan Hoffman (@JHoffman), The Guardian, Vanity Fair

I can agonize over this question or I can go at this Malcolm Gladwell “Blink”-style. My answer is Tatum O’Neal in “Paper Moon.” She’s just so funny and tough, which of course makes the performance all the more heartbreaking. She won the freaking Oscar at age 10 for this and I’d really love to give a more deep cut response, but why screw around? Paper Moon is a perfect film and she is the lynchpin.

Serge Bozon having a Hard, Fast And Beautiful First Encounter with Gavin Smith Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

First Encounters at the Quad Cinema have included Kenneth Lonergan and Edward Yang's Yi Yi, John Turturro and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, and two directors who have films in the Main Slate of this year's New York Film Festival, Greta Gerwig with Lady Bird watched David Lynch's Blue Velvet and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected) director Noah Baumbach's First Encounter was Bruce Robinson's Withnail And I.

Serge Bozon, who is in the Main Slate program with Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde), starring Isabelle Huppert with Romain Duris and José Garcia, chose Ida Lupino's Hard, Fast And Beautiful with Claire Trevor, Sally Forrest, Robert Clarke, Kenneth Patterson, and Carleton G Young for his First Encounter.

Isabelle Huppert in ‪Serge Bozon‬'s Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde)

Hard, Fast And Beautiful...

If you’re looking for a good cinephile read this weekend, you may want to check The New York Times, where critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis have revealed their 25 Best Films of the 21st Century So Far. It’s not everyday you’ll see both Edward Yang‘s “Yi Yi” and Judd Apatow‘s “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” sharing the same space, which is kind of amazing.

Continue reading Sofia Coppola & Denis Villeneuve Pick The Best Films Of The 21st Century So Far at The Playlist.

After four years Martin Scorsese is back with another six filmic gems from all corners of the Earth. Love struggles in the slums of Thailand and the economic boom town of Taipei; underdog heroes undertake troubled missions in Turkey and Kazakhstan, a Malay storyteller plays cinematic games with basic narrative, and a vintage Brazilian art film is pure visual poetry. They’ve all been rescued by the World Cinema Project.

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 2

Blu-ray + DVD

The Criterion Collection 873-879

1931 – 2000 / Color + B&W / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 30, 2017 / 124.95

Directed by Lino Brocka, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ermek Shinarbaev, Mário Peixoto, Lütfi Ö. Akad, Edward Yang

I readily confess that in my patchy history of film festival attendance, I gravitated not toward the really obscure foreign films, unless they promise to be as entertaining as things I’m more familiar with. Based on the results, one of...

Quad Cinema Director of Programming and Nathan Silver's Thirst Street co-writer C Mason Wells Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Since its reopening by Charles S Cohen in April, the Quad Cinema has had four noteworthy theatrical premieres right from the start: Terence Davies' soulful A Quiet Passion (with Cynthia Nixon as Emily Dickinson, Jennifer Ehle, Keith Carradine); Katell Quillévéré's thoughtful Heal The Living (Emmanuelle Seigner, Kool Shen, Tahar Rahim, Finnegan Oldfield); Bruno Dumont's wild Slack Bay (Fabrice Luchini, Juliette Binoche, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), and Maura Axelrod's impish Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back.

Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion still going strong at the Quad Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Following First Encounters for Greta Gerwig with David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Kenneth Lonergan with Edward Yang's Yi Yi, John Turturro and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, and Noah Baumbach catching up on Bruce Robinson's Withnail And I at the Quad,...

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach have First Encounters at the Quad Cinema Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Quad Cinema in New York reopens in grand style this Friday, April 14 with theatrical releases of Katell Quillévéré's Heal The Living (Réparer Les vivants), Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion and Maura Axelrod's Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back. Amy Heckerling will introduce Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze) in the career retrospective for the great filmmaker Lina Wertmüller: Female Trouble.

Manchester By The Sea director Kenneth Lonergan first views Edward Yang's Yi Yi Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

First Encounters kicks off this Saturday with Greta Gerwig's first viewing of David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Jeffrey Deitch chooses Da Pennebaker's Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, John Turturro picks Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, Noah Baumbach nails Bruce Robinson's Withnail And I, Sandra Bernhard views Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lola, and...

Next month will mark the return of New York City’s Quad Cinema, a theater reshaped and rebranded as a proper theater via the resources of Charles S. Cohen, head of the distribution outfit Cohen Media Group. While we got a few hints of the line-up during the initial announcement, they’ve now unveiled their first full repertory calendar, running from April 14th through May 4th, and it’s an embarassment of cinematic riches.

Including the previously revealed Lina Wertmüller retrospective, one inventive series that catches our eye is First Encounters, in which an artist will get to experience a film they’ve always wanted to see, but never have, and in which you’re invited to take part. The first match-ups in the series include Kenneth Lonergan‘s first viewing Edward Yang‘s Yi Yi, Noah Baumbach‘s first viewing of Withnail and I, John Turturro‘s first viewing of Pather Panchali,...

Noah Baumbach has never seen “Withnail and I.” Kenneth Lonergan has always wanted to see “Yi Yi.” Sandra Bernhard hasn’t had the chance to catch “Lola.” As part of New York City’s Quad Cinema’s newly announced “First Encounters” screening series, they (and more creative types) are going to finally remedy that — and they’d like you to join them.

The newly revamped four-screen theater — set to reopen in less than in a month — has announced the first lineup of their newest series, which sees notable New Yorkers (helped by programmers Christopher Wells and Gavin Smith) picking a film they’ve never seen (but have always wanted to) to show on the big screen, complete with a post-showing Q&A with the rest of audience.

Check out the first official lineup for First Encounters below, with descriptions and other information provided by Quad Cinema.

Read More: New York...

The late Edward Yang’s 1985 film Taipei Story portrays a couple that has begun to drift apart: the white-collar and upwardly mobile Chin (pop star Tsai Chin, soon to marry the filmmaker), who is forced to quit her corporate job after being demoted to secretary; and her sad-sack boyfriend, Lung (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, the other great Taiwanese director of Yang’s generation), who runs a textile store and is haunted by his past as a local baseball star. The original title translates as “green plums and a hobby horse,” a Chinese idiom for childhood sweethearts, meant ironically. But the English title, a reference to Yasujirō Ozu’s Japanese classic Tokyo Story, holds an irony of its own. With the exception of his final movie, Yi Yi, Yang’s work is less known to American arthouse audiences than the films that Hou or the younger Tsai Ming-Liang were making around the...

Festival to host a retrospective of the work of late Taiwanese filmmaker.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff, April 11-25) is presenting a retrospective of the work of late Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang.

Entitled ‘Edward Yang, 10-year Commemoration’, the tribute will screen all seven of Yang’s films, including newly restored versions of Taipei Story (1985) and A Brighter Summer Day (1991).

One of the most influential filmmakers in Asian cinema, Yang was a pioneering figure in the New Taiwanese Cinema movement of the 1980s, alongside directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. He won best director at Cannes in 2000 for A One And A Two (Yi Yi).

He died in 2007 at the age of 60 following a seven-year struggle with cancer.

Hsiao Yeh, Yang’s long-time collaborator and screenwriter on his 1986 film The Terrorizers, and Yang’s widow Kaili Peng, who wrote the original score for A One And A Two, will both attend...

All seven of Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang's feature films will be screened at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival, to mark the 10th anniversary of the filmmaker's death, it was announced today.    That Day, on the Beach (1983), The Terrorisers (1986), A Confucian Confusion (1994), Mahjong (1996) and Yi Yi: A One and a Two... (2000) will be featured at this year's festival together with newly restored versions of Taipei Story (1985) and A Brighter Summer Day (1991) in a programme entitled "Edward Yang, 10-Year Commemoration". Yang's regular collaborator, screenwriter Hsiao Yeh, as well as Yang's wife Kaili Peng will also attend and share their memories of the pioneering auteur with festival audiences.   Born in Shanghai, Yang grew up in Taipei where...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Issey Ogata‘s name is not at the top of the poster or in much of any marketing for Silence, but his role as Inoue Masashige, so very ominously nicknamed “The Inquisitor,” is among the most essential and memorable in Martin Scorsese‘s religious epic. While primarily a veteran of Asian television, Ogata still eanrs a special place among cinephiles — one that will only grow wider and stronger once this film opens — for his work in Edward Yang’s Yi Yi and Alexander Sokurov’s The Sun, the latter of which features him as Japan’s Emperor Hirohito in the final days of World War II.

Much of Silence comes to comprise the opposition between Masashige and Andrew Garfield‘s Sebastião Rodrigues, but Ogata’s performance excels largely because it’s far more difficult to parse than the character it represents — alternately comic (a major part of his acting background) and menacing,...

Issei Ogata

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

There’s a newcomer to the best supporting actor race for the 2017 Oscars: Silence star Issei Ogata. Until recently the 64-year-old Japanese actor was flying under the radar and then, all of a sudden, he’s a force to be reckoned with — but who exactly is this talented thespian?

Silence is a historical drama, set in the 17th century, that follows two Jesuit priests — Father Sebastião Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Father Francisco Garrpe (Adam Driver) — who face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor, Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson), and promote Christianity. Ogata plays Inoue Masashige, one of the Japanese officials in charge of persecuting and eradicating Christians from the country. The film, co-written by Jay Cocks and Martin Scorsese, is based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō.

Ogata made headlines over the weekend...

The modern movie landscape can make some people feel like the best days of film are behind us. With remakes, reboots and adaptations very abundant, and original movies seemingly not raking it in at the box office, that is an understandable sentiment. But the BBC felt like there are a lot of recent movies worth celebrating, and that is why they set out to make a list of the 100 greatest movies of the 21st century. The list they came up with is nothing if not interesting, and it is definitely a reminder that there are a lot of great movies that have been made in the last 16 years.

BBC published the list on Tuesday morning, after taking months to put it all together. In order to come up with this list, they used nearly 200 critics from both print and online publications, as well as academics and curators. The contributors that were used spanned the globe,...

Last year, the BBC polled a bunch of critics to determine the 100 greatest American films of all time and only six films released after 2000 placed at all. This year, the BBC decided to determine the “new classics,” films from the past 16 years that will likely stand the test of time, so they polled critics from around the globe for their picks of the 100 greatest films of the 21st Century so far. David Lynch’s “Mulholland Dr.” tops the list, Wong Kar-Wai’s “In The Mood For Love” places second, and Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers both have 2 films in the top 25. See the full results below.

Read More: The Best Movies of the 21st Century, According to IndieWire’s Film Critics

Though the list itself is fascinating, what’s also compelling are the statistics about the actual list. According to the the BBC, they polled 177 film critics from every continent except Antarctica.

Ryan Lambie Aug 23, 2016

A critics' survey puts Mullholland Drive at the top of the list of the best films since 2000. Did yours make the cut?

Movie critics love Linklater, Studio Ghibli, the Coens and the surrealist stylings of David Lynch. At least, that's if a newly-published list of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century is anything to go by.

BBC Culture commissioned the poll, which took in responses from 177 film critics from all over the world. As a result, the top 100 includes an eclectic mix of the mainstream to independent movies, from dramas to sci-fi and off-beat comedies. Feew would be surprised to see things like Paolo Sorrentino's handsome Italian confection The Great Beauty propping up the lower end of the list, or that such acclaimed directors as Wes Anderson or the aforementioned Coens feature heavily.

What is pleasing to see, though, is how much good genre stuff has made the cut,...

Although we’re only about 16% into the 21st century thus far, the thousands of films that have been released have provided a worthy selection to reflect on the cinematic offerings as they stand. We’ve chimed in with our favorite animations, comedies, sci-fi films, and have more to come, and now a new critics’ poll that we’ve taken part in has tallied up the 21st century’s 100 greatest films overall.

The BBC has polled 177 critics from around the world, resulting in a variety of selections, led by David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive. Also in the top 10 was Wong Kar-wai‘s In the Mood For Love and Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life, which made my personal ballot (seen at the bottom of the page).

In terms of the years with the most selections, 2012 and 2013 each had 9, while Wes Anderson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Christopher Nolan, the Coens, Michael Haneke, and...

Yi Yi, the first of Edward Yang’s films to receive distribution in the United States (in 2000), was also his last before the revered Taiwanese filmmaker died in 2007. Still, Yang’s 1991 epic A Brighter Summer Day, managed to find a fan base in the U.S. though it was available for decades only in abridged form on low-quality home video. In March, after an arduous restoration effort that spanned years, The Criterion Collection released A Brighter Summer Day on Blu-ray and DVD. Back in 2011, the restored work was screened at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and in other limited engagements, but it has otherwise been […]...

This article was produced as part of the Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring journalists at the Locarno Film Festival, a collaboration between the Locarno Film Festival, IndieWire and the Film Society of Lincoln Center with the support of Film Comment and the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists. The following interview, conducted by a member of the Critics Academy, focuses on a participant in the affiliated Filmmakers Academy program at the festival.

With no prior film education, filmmaker Wei Liang Chiang relocated to Taiwan to participate in the sixth Golden Horse Film Academy under the mentorship of filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Arvin Chen. Like his cinematic mentors, Chiang’s work, varying from realist portraits to melodramas, captures the intersection of the personal and political with patience and warmth.

His 2015 film, “Anchorage Prohibited,” won the Audi Short Film Award at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. Comprised of long takes and minimal dialogue,...

Mark and Aaron are joined by Scott Nye to hash out the intricate themes, history, and nuance of Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day. Given the length and depth of the film, we explored it in detail, distilling the cultural and societal clashes that took place in a pivotal period of Chinese and Taiwanese history. We also compare it to what is considered Yang’s other masterpiece, Yi Yi, and we touch on the New Taiwanese Cinema movement.

About the film:

Among the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual,...

It’s one thing to come up with a top 10 list of the best movies in any given year. The best movies of the decade is even harder. But the best movies of a century? Ok, when it comes to the new millennium, that’s just a decade and a half. Still, it’s no easy task to consider the highlights from 16 years of viewing — but that’s part of what makes it such a compelling challenge.

Recently, BBC polled a large group of critics, including IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich, for their lists of the best achievements of the 21st century. (The full results will run in mid-to-late August.) The results of the poll have yet to run, but as countless participants have begun sharing their results, we felt compelled to weigh in. Of course, lists are highly subjective and almost always omit some major titles, so...

Superb filmmaking! Edward Yang's chronicle of the children of Chinese exiles in Taiwan follows one teen's strange story of accidental delinquency, muted romance and pervasive violence in a closed society fed on American Rock 'n' Roll and Cold War militarism. Almost exactly as long as Gone With the Wind, Yang's intimate epic is one of those 'best movies ever' that few Americans have heard of. A Brighter Summer Day Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 804 1991 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 236 min. / Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 22, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Chen Chang, Lisa Yang, Kuo-Chu Chang, Elaine Jin, Chuan Wang, Han Chang, Hsiu-Chiung Chiang, Stephanie Lai, Chi-tsan Wang, Lawrence Ko, Chih-Kang Tan, Ming-Hsin Chang, Chun-Lung Jung, Hui-Kuo Chou. Cinematography Hui Kung Chang, Longyu Zhang Film Editor Po-Wen Chen Written by Hung Hung, Mingtang Lai Produced by Wei-yen Yu Directed by Edward Yang

Reviewed by...

Yes, it’s four hours long, but this rarely seen Edward Yang film evokes the heartache and confusion of adolescence, like a Chinese Rebel Without a Cause

If you see a single four-hour film about the transitional generation of Chinese refugees born in Taiwan after the Communist takeover, make it Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day. Though since its debut on the film festival scene in 1991 it’s been a difficult title to find, at least in the United States. That ends now, however, with the four-day run at Brooklyn’s BAMcinématek of a new 4K restoration followed by a highly anticipated Blu-ray and DVD release via the Criterion Collection. It has never had a general American release.

Edward Yang is best known for his rich 2000 multigenerational melodrama Yi Yi: a One and a Two, and one can find some similarities between it and this earlier, massive film.

Congratulations to Wendy Lidell, whom we have known during her outstanding career spanning over 25 years, for being appointed as the Kino Lorber'snew Senior Vice President, Theatrical Distribution and Acquisitions.

As the head of Kino Lorber’s theatrical division, Ms. Lidell will oversee and manage all aspects of the company’s theatrical and non-theatrical slate, over 25 films per year, reporting directly to CEO Richard Lorber. Reporting to her are the company’s current team: Jonathan Hertzberg, Director of Theatrical Sales (who will continue to handle film bookings nationwide), Sylvia Savadjian, Director of Marketing, and Rodrigo Brandão, VP of Marketing and Publicity.

In addition to her new duties, Lidell will work directly with Richard Lorber to drive new business opportunities for the company, including identifying new content acquisitions and strategic growth areas.

She previously worked with Richard Lorber when he acquired International Film Circuit in 1998, to become the theatrical division of his company Fox Lorber. While at Fox Lorber, which later became Wellspring Media, Lidell released six to eight titles per year, including Alexander Sokurov’s "Russian Ark", François Ozon’s "Under the Sand", starring Charlotte Rampling, "Yi Yi“ by Edward Yang (named Best Film of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics), and "On the Ropes" (nominated for a documentary Academy Award).

After returning to International Film Circuit in 2004, Lidell released dozens of films, including "Don't Move," starring Penelope Cruz, "Darwin's Nightmare," which earned her a second documentary Academy Award nomination, and "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, "which joined the elite group of documentaries that have grossed over $1 million theatrically. Other notable successes included "My Perestroika," "The Waiting Room," Nancy Spielberg’s "Above and Beyond" and "Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness."

“It’s a very happy opportunity for Kino Lorber and me, personally, to work with Wendy again,” said Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber. “She has distinguished herself as a brilliant forward thinking film executive and passionate entrepreneur in our challenging environment, regularly acquiring and bringing to screen films of exceptional quality and commercial promise. In all my earlier years working with her, she never disappointed me – while her eye for quality and intelligence of execution never failed her. We couldn’t be more pleased to have her lead our theatrical team into the future. “

“It will be an enormous pleasure to join the Kino Lorber team,” wrote Wendy Lidell. “There are few film companies that combine a passion for great cinema with the business acumen required to navigate the challenges of a rapidly changing distribution landscape. Together, I hope we can continue for many years to bring more great films to bigger and more diverse audiences.”

Current and upcoming released from Kino Lorber include Amos Gitai’s "Rabin, the Last Day, Jia Zhangke’s "Mountains May Depart," Jayro Bustamante's "Ixcanul," and "Sons My Brother Taught Me. "...

"The enjoyment of a work of art, the acceptance of an irresistible illusion, constituting, to my sense, our highest experience of "luxury," the luxury is not greatest, by my consequent measure, when the work asks for as little attention as possible. It is greatest, it is delightfully, divinely great, when we feel the surface, like the thick ice of the skater's pond, bear without cracking the strongest pressure we throw on it. The sound of the crack one may recognise, but never surely to call it a luxury." —Henry James, from The Preface to The Wings of the Dove (1909) "[The critic’s] choice of best salami is a picture backed by studio build-up, agreement amongst his colleagues, a layout in Life mag (which makes it officially reasonable for an American award), and a list of ingredients that anyone’s unsophisticated aunt in Oakland can spot as comprising a distinguished film. This prize picture,...

Like millions of you around the world, i love Kung Fu movies. It is the only real genre that keeps me going back for more and that is why i will always love Kung Fu movies.

I know many of you have probably seen many of the movies i will post about, but this is also for anyone new to the genre of Kung Fu and even Swordplay and looking for other movies to enjoy. I hope you enjoy the movies i have listed and please feel free to comment about any of the movies.

 

1. Drunken Master 2 (1994)

Director: Jackie Chan, Lau Kar Leung

Cast: Jackie Chan, Lau Kar Leung, Ti Lung, Anita Mui, Andy Lau, Chin Kar Lok, Ken Lo

Fight Choreographer(s): Jackie Chan, Lau Kar Leung

Studio:  Golden Harvest

 

2. Broken Oath (1977)

Director: Jeong Chang Hwa

Cast: Michael Chan, Angela Mao, Chiu Hung, Bruce Leung, Wang Lai

Fight Choreographer(s): Hsu Hsia,...

Joel and Ethan Coen movie ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ tops 2014 National Society of Film Critics Awards (Oscar Isaac in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’) The National Society of Film Critics is the last major U.S.-based critics’ group to announce their annual winners. This year, their top film was Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, a comedy-drama about a hapless folk singer. Inside Llewyn Davis also earned honors for the directors, star Oscar Isaac, and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel. Additionally, the Coen brothers’ film was the runner-up in the Best Screenplay category. Inside Llewyn Davis is the first movie directed by Joel and Ethan Coen to win the top prize at the National Society of Film Critics Awards. Back in early 2008, whereas most critics’ groups — and the Academy Awards — went for the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, the Nsfc selected instead Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.

At one point the cast included Daniel Day-Lewis, Benicio del Toro and Gael Garcia Bernal, but it's taken quite a long time for Martin Scorsese to get Silence off the ground and people move on while other projects stall. Silence, however, is finally coming together. With the production eying a 2014 start, Scorsese has set Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Social Network) and Ken Watanabe (Inception, The Last Samurai) to star in the film based on Shusaku Endo's novel adapted for the screen by Jay Cocks and Variety's news item reporting it will be a Japaense-language film. Issei Ogata (Yi Yi) also stars. The story is set in the 17th century as two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and to spread the gospel of Christianity. Garfield will star as Father Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit who travels to Japan...

Five years after they both died on the same day, why is the Italian director's work still overshadowed by Ingmar 'boring' Bergman?

Five years after his death, and on the centenary of his birth, Michelangelo Antonioni seems to have fallen out of fashion. When he died in 2007, on the same day as his contemporary, Ingmar Bergman, Antonioni was considered by obituarists to be the junior genius of the pair, even though the Swede's work fell predictably in step with the wintry, neurotic output of Edvard Munch and August Strindberg, and lacked all formal dynamism. Antonioni, meanwhile, was a formal innovator in a way the plodding Bergman never could be. Since they're both dead, it hardly matters. But it does seem that you either love Antonioni or you hate him. I'm in the first column.

So are Stanley Kubrick, Wim Wenders, Miklós Jancsó and Edward Yang, who learned from Antonioni the...