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When we think of French cinema, there are many influential names that come to mind including Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda, or Luc Besson. Two sides are drawn when analyzing French movies where one is a realistic approach to the art form and the other is of a more romanticized, fantastical style of storytelling. Reality and fantasy are a French director’s two paths to choose. Jean Pierre Jeunet is an exception as he manages to take inspiration from both of these sides while also finding success in major film markets outside his native homeland. Prevelant across all his projects is his charming idiosyncratic style in which he uses the genres of fantasy, romantic comedy, science fiction, and even war to “create idealized realities or give relevance to mundane situations.” His films are some of the most accessible French films to international audiences and this article will provide a feasible guide...

It was reported last week that Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were reprising their roles from the classic rom-com When Harry Met Sally… for a reunion project, and now we know exactly what that project is: a Super Bowl ad co-starring Sydney Sweeney.

Ryan and Crystal starred together in the 1989 Rob Reiner favorite as Harry Burns and Sally Albright, two friends who meet by chance over the years only to finally realize they're attracted to one another. Along the way, audiences were treated to one of the most iconic scenes in cinema, in which Ryan's character fakes an orgasm in a delicatessen.

It's that orgasm scene that Crystal and Ryan reunited to recreate for a Super Bowl Lix commercial for Hellmann's Mayonnaise (seen below), and the results did not disappoint. "I can't believe they let us back in this place," Crystal says as the pair sit once more in New York's Katz's Delicatessen eating sandwiches.

The beauty of stop-motion animation is in its handmade production, where the artists’ fingers are present on the characters, sets, and backgrounds. Technological advances have made these labor-intensive films easier to create — but “Memoir of a Snail” writer/director Adam Elliot wanted his film to remain as handmade as possible.

“We wanted to celebrate the lumps and bumps,” Elliot told IndieWire. “We use two words a lot in the studio: chunky wonky. Everything has to look a bit imperfect, asymmetrical, a bit rough around the edges. But on the other hand, we don’t want it to look too rough that it looks amateurish and looks like a student film.”

That’s the balancing act at the center of “Memoir of a Snail,” a darkly humorous animated drama about the misfortunes of snail collector Grace, who must learn to find her confidence and overcome great tragedies. For Elliot, who has made films for nearly 30 years,...

Despite its ups and downs, I’ve always respected the Alien franchise for daring to try something new with every new entry. From Vietnam allegories to reimagining Chariots of the Gods as a Lovecraftian origin story for the Xenomorphs, the series challenges the very concept of genre as it explores what might go wrong when humanity comes into contact with a truly perfect organism.

And with Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus paying homage to the most underrated movie in the franchise during its horrific final act, today I’d like to look back on Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s unfairly maligned Alien: Resurrection and dive into why I think this oddball gem of a film deserves more love.

Like many sequels, the story of Resurrection begins soon after the release of its predecessor. Desperate for a course-correction after the grimdark prison story of Alien³ left audiences feeling frustrated, Fox attempted to recruit established filmmakers like Danny Boyle,...

With Alien: Romulus hitting our screens soon, it is as good a time as any to cast a discerning eye over the history of this at times breath-taking and always fascinating franchise and remind ourselves of some of the best scenes that it has given us.

Related: Win Alien 6-film Box Set Collection on Blu-Ray

In the interests of those important tenets of equity and inclusion, we’ll have one from each film….

Alien

The original, and still considered by many to be the high water mark of the franchise. A phenomenal “haunted house in space” nerve-jangler, Alien has enough iconic scenes to fill this article and many more. As obvious a choice as it might be, we are of course going with the chest-burster scene.

John Hurt’s Kane, awake from a face-hugger induced coma, is merrily stuffing his face in the mess hall, until what initially looks like...

A killer spider terrorises a New York apartment building in a tonally messy horror with some great creature effects. Our review of Sting:

Odd name for a killer spider movie, Sting. For that we can thank Tolkien-loving 12 year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) who chooses it as the nickname for the arachnid she finds scuttling around her dimly-lit New York apartment building. Sweeping the critter into a jar and intent on keeping it as a pet, Charlotte is blissfully unaware that Sting is capable of escaping from its glass prison and, as it dines on other living things roaming around the building, will soon grow to a frightening size.

Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner, Sting is an eclectic mash-up of styles and influences. Its snowbound apartment setting, every floor filled with eccentrics, immediately recalls Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s Delicatessen. Roache-Turner seems to relish in the little...

Unspooling May 18 as part of an overall Swiss Focus at the Marché du Film, Solothurn Film Festival Goes to Cannes marks the first collaboration between the long-standing Swiss festival and the Cannes market, but also a first for many of the talents and producers carefully picked for the event.

Two of Switzerland’s top documentary filmmakers Jacqueline Zünd, winner of a 2019 Crystal Bear nominated for “Where We Belong,” and Nicholas Steiner, director of “Above & Below”, ranked among Variety reviewer Peter Debruge’s Top 10 films of 2015, are set to attract buyers, sales agents and programmers’ attention with their star-stubbed fiction debuts.

In “Do You Believe in Angels, Mr Drowak,” Steiner has hired Karl Markovics, star of the 2008 Oscar winner “The Counterfeiters”, rising acting talent Lune Wedler, Lars Eidinger and Dominique Pinon.

“After two cinematic documentaries that ran worldwide and an original Netflix series [“Dig Deeper-The Disappearance of Birgit Meier”], I was excited to create this technically demanding,...

Alien: Resurrection offers a unique and fun take on the franchise with dark comedy and a comic-book vibe. The film features an unsettling and creative horror element with the uncanny valley creature and compromised Ripley character. The dedicated cast and crew had fun creating the movie, with practical effects giving it an '80s sci-fi feel that has aged well.

The Alien franchise has some incredible entries, but the most underrated film in the series is Alien: Resurrection. Released in 1997, the movie was met with mixed reviews that leaned towards the positive, but was still buried beneath both a historically great year for cinema and the high expectations of fans. Since then, opinion remains mixed on the film and its place in the franchise. Resurrection is certainly odd and at times frustrating, but this movie is an example of what great sci-fi often is: strange, thought-provoking, and challenging to viewers.

Severin Films kicks off the new year with three North American premieres that bring “one of the best labels in physical media” (Polygon) into 2024 replete with classic monsters, barbed-wire garrotes, ‘80s Italo-Sleaze in Uhd and arguably the most depraved bedtime accessory ever created.

For January, Severin presents the ultimate version of Jess Franco’s 1972 mash-up Dracula, Prisoner Of Frankenstein; the rarely-seen Ozploitation slasher Bloodmoon, complete with infamous ‘Fright Break Challenge’; and Andrea Bianchi’s off-the-rails zombie carnage classic Burial Ground, now in eye-popping, flesh-ripping 4K.

To further celebrate everyone’s favorite shambling Etruscans, an all-new Burial Ground t-shirt and Michael Pillowcase will be available in two of this month’s bundles.

January also brings much-requested wide-release versions of previously limited-edition titles — Frank Henenlotter’s black comedy shocker Bad Biology, controversial ‘80s sleaze classic Nightmare and Lucio Fulci’s giallo masterpiece The Psychic — all fully restored in 4K Uhd.

Dracula, Prisoner...

November 1st is a tough day for horror hounds. The decorations are still up, the air remains crisp, but the spirit has seemingly moved on, perhaps vanquished by the sun. Alamo Drafthouse says to hell with all of that and has announced two month’s worth of genre joy that’ll take you from Dia de los Muertos to Christmas Eve with minimal whiplash.

Terror Tuesday is a weekly slash-and-thrash through the world of horror, and they’ve booked a number of holiday-tinged forever classics mixed in with new canon-busting entries, many of which are screening from new, sparkling scans. Highlights include Lake Mungo, Tales from the Hood, The Changeling, and a pre-Thanksgiving feast with the Sawyers.

Weird Wednesday is similarly a weekly exploration of exploitation, pop oddities, and underloved gems. (Think of it as channel-surfing a transmission from a better dimension). And like Terror Tuesday, they’ve loaded it...

Studiocanal are proud to release Delicatessen the wonderfully dark, critically acclaimed surreal comedy from directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, in a sumptuous new 4K restoration, and making its Uhd debut.

Directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro dazzling fantasy adventure The City Of Lost Children was released earlier this year by Studiocanal.

Delicatessen is set in a distant, apocalyptic future, conventional society has reached a state of collapse. Grain is now used as currency and meat has become a rare commodity. Meanwhile an unemployed clown finds work as a maintenance man in a squalid apartment block situated above a butcher’s shop.

Having fallen in love with the owner’s daughter he soon discovers the sinister truth behind the ominous landlord’s unsavoury intentions. Between blossoming romance and disappearing tenants his only hope for survival could be the members of a subterranean militia of vegetarian freedom fighters. Or is it too late already?...

To celebrate the sumptuous new 4K restoration of the wonderfully dark, critically acclaimed surreal comedy Delicatessen – out 16th October on 4K Ultra HD Edition, Blu-ray & DVD – we have a Blu-ray up for grabs!

With its iconic, surreal imagery, gallows humour and its cast of warped characters, Delicatessen marked the breakthrough collaboration between celebrated directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (Dante 01). Equal parts horror, comedy and dystopian fantasia, Delicatessen is still one of the most original and influential films of its time.

A deliciously dark one-of-a-kind black comedy, beautifully and intricately filmed, featuring uproarious slapstick, an endlessly inventive script, and it even manages to add a sweet romance to the mix. Variety calls it a ‘startling and clever debut’, and Empire says it is a ‘delightfully original picture, poised perfectly between farce and horror’.

Order today: https://amzn.to/3E5BO95 or win a copy on Blu-ray by answering the following...

To celebrate the release of Delicatessen available on 4k Uhd, Blu-Ray, DVD and to Download from 16th October, we are giving away a 4k Uhd!

Delicatessen, in a sumptuous new 4K restoration, and making its Uhd debut, is a wonderfully dark, critically acclaimed surreal comedy from directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro.

Delicatessen is set in a distant, apocalyptic future, conventional society has reached a state of collapse. Grain is now used as currency and meat has become a rare commodity. Meanwhile an unemployed clown finds work as a maintenance man in a squalid apartment block situated above a butcher’s shop.

Having fallen in love with the owner’s daughter he soon discovers the sinister truth behind the ominous landlord’s unsavoury intentions. Between blossoming romance and disappearing tenants his only hope for survival could be the members of a subterranean militia of vegetarian freedom fighters. Or is it too late already?...

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

Museum of the Moving Image

Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, starting this weekend with A Lion in the House, Femme Fatale, and Summer Hours, all on 35mm.

Paris Theater

The Paris has reopened with a Saturday-morning 70mm screening of Playtime.

Roxy Cinema

The Third Man, Knock Knock, Klute, and Great Expectations show on 35mm.

Metrograph

An extensive retrospective of the great Robby Müller has begun.

IFC Center

The new restoration of Shinji Somai’s Typhoon Club continues; All That Jazz, Delicatessen, The Holy Mountain, The Lords of Salem, Sleepy Hollow, and Gregg Araki’s Nowhere play while Oldboy screens in a new restoration.

Film Forum

A new 4K restoration of Farewell, My Concubine begins; Shrek plays on Sunday

The post NYC Weekend Watch: Summer Hours, Klute, Gregg Araki & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

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

Museum of the Moving Image

Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, starting this weekend with Demonlover, Femme Fatale, Summer Hours, and Junebug all on 35mm; Cukor’s Sylvia Scarlett plays on 35mm.

Paris Theater

The Paris has reopened with 35mm screenings of The Conversation, There Will Be Blood, and The Tree of Life, as well as Lawrence of Arabia on 70mm.

Roxy Cinema

Ahead of The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s feature debut Sexy Beast plays on 35mm; Dog Day Afternoon, The Graduate, and Fantastic Planet also show on prints.

Film Forum

A new 4K restoration of Farewell, My Concubine begins; Michael Roemer’s great The Plot Against Harry screens on 35mm; Contempt continues in a 4K restoration; The Secret Garden plays on Sunday

IFC Center

The new restoration of Shinji Somai’s Typhoon...

McKinley Carlin’s hilarious comedy short Noodles Forever, featured in our Best of Fest of Nffty 2023 selection, pictures the hideous reality of turning up at a birthday party where not only do you discover your ex is getting remarried but you have just unwittingly murdered your daughter’s beloved wiener-dog who happens to be the guest of honour. Just one of those situations is enough to ruin your day and filmmaker Carlin shrewdly frames our unfortunate protagonist’s descent into panic as he navigates each with the clumsy awkward ineptitude of someone completely at sea in their circumstances. Carlin slides through a multitude of carefully constructed plot points with ease, mounting one mishap upon another in an uncomfortable escalation of hilarity that you can’t help but curl your toes at as the hapless father’s afternoon just gets worse and worse. With Noodles Forever premiering on Dn today, in...

To celebrate the release of The City of Lost Children – released on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray & DVD 3rd April – we have a 4K Uhd up for grabs!

The City of Lost Children, in a spectacular new 4K restoration, and making its Uhd debut, is a dazzling fantasy adventure from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, creators of the critically acclaimed 1991 cult hit Delicatessen. They bring their surreal vision to the story of Krank, a tormented scientist who sets about kidnapping local children in order to steal their dreams and so reverse his accelerated ageing process. When Krank’s henchmen kidnap his brother, local fisherman and former circus strongman One (Hellboy’s Ron Perlman) sets out on a journey to Krank’s nightmarish laboratory, accompanied by a little orphan girl called Miette (Judith Vittet).

With stunning visuals from Oscar-nominated cinematographer Darius Khondji, costumes from Jean Paul Gaultier (The Fifth Element) and a haunting...

To celebrate the release of The City Of Lost Children – released on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray & DVD 3rd April – we have a 4K Uhd up for grabs!

The City Of Lost Children, in a spectacular new 4K restoration, and making its Uhd debut, is a dazzling fantasy adventure from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, creators of the critically acclaimed 1991 cult hit Delicatessen. They bring their surreal vision to the story of Krank, a tormented scientist who sets about kidnapping local children in order to steal their dreams and so reverse his accelerated ageing process. When Krank’s henchmen kidnap his brother, local fisherman and former circus strongman One (Hellboy’s Ron Perlman) sets out on a journey to Krank’s nightmarish laboratory, accompanied by a little orphan girl called Miette (Judith Vittet).

With stunning visuals from Oscar-nominated cinematographer Darius Khondji, costumes from Jean Paul Gaultier (The Fifth Element) and a haunting...

Alien: Covenant (Screengrab: 20th Century Fox), Hulu logo Screenshot: AVClub In space, no one can hear you yawn. That was the general consensus last December when it was revealed that the ninth film in the Alien franchise, which launched in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking horror/sci-fi fusion, was on...

Actress Rhea Seehorn discusses a few of her favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Swimmer (1968)

Linoleum (2023)

Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992)

Short Cuts (1993)

Lars And The Real Girl (2007)

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Breaking The Waves (1996)

Sound Of Metal (2020)

Starman (1984)

The Worst Person In The World (2021)

Beatriz At Dinner (2017)

Frida (2002)

The Shape Of Water (2017)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

The Lobster (2015)

Delicatessen (1992)

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

The Favourite (2018)

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

Birdman (2014)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Stepford Wives (2004)

Triangle Of Sadness (2022)

Get Out (2017)

Nope (2022)

Brazil (1985)

Safe (1995)

Withnail & I (1987)

The Fisher King (1991)

Regarding Henry (1990)

Lost in La Mancha (2002)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote...

Picture Tree Intl. has taken global sales rights for “The Peacock” by Lutz Heineking Jr. The black comedy is based on the best-selling novel of the same title by German author Isabel Bogdan, which has been published in key European territories. Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer (below).

The film’s cast is filled with German stars including Lavinia Wilson, Tom Schilling, David Kross and Jürgen Vogel. Tobis Film releases the film in Germany on March 9.

When investment banker Linda Bachmann and her team arrive at the country estate of Lord and Lady McIntosh for a team building seminar, the prospects for having a relaxing weekend in Scotland are not good: the annual balance sheet is lousy, the team is keeping a suspicious eye on each other and their boss, and there are rumors that a compliance officer will soon be restructuring the department.

To make matters worse,...

Click here to read the full article.

The American Society of Cinematographers has revealed the honorees for the 37th ASC Awards: Stephen Goldblatt will receive Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Darius Khondji the International Award, Charlie Lieberman the President’s Award, Fred Murphy the Career Achievement in Television honor and Sam Nicholson will get the Curtis Clark Technical Achievement Award.

Born in South Africa, British cinematographer Goldblatt was twice nominated for an Oscar, for Batman Forever (1995) and The Prince of Tides (1991), and is known for a body of work that includes the first two Lethal Weapon movies for Richard Donner and two Batman movies (Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Batman & Robin). He also is known for collaborations with Mike Nichols, including Closer, Charlie Wilson’s War and the 2003 miniseries Angels in America, for which Goldblatt was Emmy nominated (he also received Emmy nominations for 2001’s Conspiracy and 2002’s Path...

Directors James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte discuss the movies that inspired them while making The Big Conn.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Boogie Nights (1997)

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

Happiness (1998)

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

Windy City Heat (2003)

Ocean’s 11 (1960)

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Bad Boys (1995)

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

Munich (2005)

Fargo (1996)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Delicatessen (1991)

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013)

The Hole (2009) – Joe Dante’s U.S. trailer commentary, Joe Dante’s Italian trailer commentary, Joe Dante’s British trailer commentary, Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Dial M For Murder (1954) – Mark Pellington’s trailer commentary

Jaws 3D (1983)

Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)

U2 3D (2008)

The Pink Panther (1963) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

Goodfellas (1990) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Children of Men (2006)

The Imposter (2012)

Other Notable Items

The Big Conn podcast (2022)

The Big Conn docuseries (2022)

Bronzeville...

The story of butchers serving up human flesh which tastes to good that nobody can resist it goes back at least four centuries. It reached its peak in the UK in 1846 when penny dreadfuls circulated the legend of Sweeney Todd, but in France most people think first of a story about St Nicholas, who is said to have saved the souls of some unfortunate children done away with in that fashion. Although films on the subject are commonplace, France hasn’t produced one since 1990’s Delicatessen, and whilst this doesn’t come close to the magic of Jeunet et Caro, it’s a little classier than what most cannibal films fans will be used to – even if its characters are not.

Vincent (Fabrice Eboué) is the butcher at the centre of this story: a friendly, unassuming guy who is just trying to make his way in life and gradually running his.

The fact that “Amélie” director Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s first movie in nine years is quietly being dumped on Netflix without festival play or advance press of any kind after Jeunet insisted that he would only partner with the streamer as “a last resort” is really the only review you should need when it comes to “Bigbug,” of 2050 (mark it on your calendars). And yet — as this feature-length cluster headache makes perfectly clear — humankind has already surrendered itself to the mercy of our corporate machine overlords, meaning that even the most exasperated critic has to pump out at least 600 words just to convince the tiny God-king inside the Google algorithm not to banish their content to the elephant graveyard that is page two of the search results. So let’s get on with it.

A filmmaker whose breakthrough successes don’t entirely diminish the feeling that he was put on this...

Jean-Pierre Jeunet put his stamp across the 1990s and 2000s with a unique blend of zany personality, thoughtful character portraits, and sharp, multi-dimensional humor. So much was running in films like Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, both co-directed with Marc Caro, that they could have boiled over, yet somehow remained focused works that played completely as the ownerships of their creators. After a brief misfire when stepping into the world of Hollywood blockbusters with 1997’s Alien: Resurrection—an early forebear of the “indie director to studio tentpole” pipeline that gobbles up every promising young filmmaker these days—Jeunet found his peak as a solo director in the early aughts: Amélie and A Very Long Engagement brought his particular style into a new era with remarkable sophistication and retention of his characteristic charm.

Then a curious thing happened. Despite being a beloved international director arguably at the height of his career,...

The Oscar-nominated film-maker behind Amélie has created a hit-and-miss comedy about a futuristic world and an android revolt

Machines might seem an antithetical thing to get sentimental about, but in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s view of them as imperfect, quirk-prone and funny, they’re pretty much human. The film-maker cobbles together off-kilter worlds where everything is mechanized yet nothing works properly, daily life turned into an absurd burlesque of glitches, miscommunications, system errors and sound-the-alarm snafus. In early-career triumphs like Delicatessen or The City of Lost Children, Jeunet assembled Rube Goldberg contraptions with such fastidious personal care that they couldn’t help but be imbued with the idiosyncrasies of their creator. Sometimes, he’ll apply this notion in a more figurative way to satirize the catch-22-clogged French bureaucracy, a giant engine seemingly built to malfunction. He gets in one or two such cracks with his latest film Bigbug, in which...

As the first film from the director of “Amélie” in nearly a decade, “Bigbug” is kind of a big deal. Sadly, it’s also a big disappointment — easily the most obnoxious Netflix original in some time, owing to the company’s trust in a director whose overactive imagination demands some kind of boundaries.

At precisely the moment pandemic-confined audiences want to get out and breathe fresh air, Jean-Pierre Jeunet gives them a suffocating scenario in which a squabbling French family is trapped in their retro-modern home with several android assistants. The result is an aggressively unfunny look at human-robot relations in a garish, cartoonishly rendered future — one in which all the houses look exactly the same on the outside, but are maintained by eccentric AI indoors (where the film spends 98% of its time).

In “No Exit,” Jean-Paul Sartre surmised that “hell is other people.” In this zany sci-fi riff on that idea,...

Epicurean horror has a long, if not always distinguished history on film, ranging from gnarly, gristly low-budget entries like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre through The Hills Have Eyes and Motel Hell (among many others), and more recently, Delicatessen, Hannibal, Raw, and now director Mimi Cave’s remarkably assured debut, Fresh. The film is one part anti-dating manifesto, one-part cautionary tale or object lesson, and maybe just as importantly, one part gut-churning horror, where the “horror” is, like always, found not in supernatural monsters or disfigured mutants drawn from feverish imaginations, but in the seemingly benign, grinning, friendly face of a dinner companion/date sharing a meal with his or her intended victim, the proverbial monster with a human face. For...

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

After earning much acclaim for his early features Delicatessen, Amélie, and The City of Lost Children, it’s now been nearly a decade since the last fully-fledged feature from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2013’s The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. The French director is now returning next month with his Netflix movie Bigbug and the full trailer has now arrived.

Starring Dominique Pinon, Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Youssef Hajdi, Alban Lenoir, and François Levantal, the sci-fi comedy is set in the year 2045 in which a group of bickering suburbanites find themselves stuck together when an android uprising causes their well-intentioned household robots to lock them in for their own safety. With a characteristically vibrant palette, the director doesn’t seem to be breaking any new ground, but hopefully it’s a fun, satirical romp.

See the trailer below.

Bigbug arrives on Netflix on February 11.

The post Bigbug Trailer: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Stages...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Fever (Maya Da-Rin)

The Fever, director-cum-visual artist Da-Rin’s first full-length feature project, puts a human face to a statistic that hardly captures the genocide Brazil is suffering. This is not just a wonderfully crafted, superb exercise in filmmaking, a multilayered tale that seesaws between social realism and magic. It is a call to action, an unassuming manifesto hashed in the present tense but reverberating as a plea from a world already past us, a memoir of sorts. – Leonardo G. (full review)

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

French New Wave

Dive into one of the most fertile eras of moving pictures with a new massive 45-film series on The Criterion Channel dedicated to the French New Wave. Highlights include Le...

BAFTA winner Jean-Pierre Jeunet is known for phantasmic dark comedies with memorable characters and untethered imagination like "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children," films so offbeat that Jeunet has had a long journey in finding those brave enough to fund his "quirky" movies. Following the botched 2015 release of "The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet," the French director has since found backing from streaming giant Netflix, which has no problem taking a leap of faith on Jeunet's meditations in surreal mundanity, backed by his animation experience and bonkers sense of humor. Just this year, Jeunet's work was cited on /Film's...

The post BigBug Teaser: The Quirky New Film From the Director of Amélie Comes to Netflix appeared first on /Film.

Academy Award-nominated “Amelie” and “A Very Long Engagement” director Jean-Pierre Jeunet hasn’t released a feature film since 2013’s “The Young and Prodigious T. S. Spivet.” But the always visually bonkers director of films including the swooningly odd “Delicatessen” and the gonzo “Alien Resurrection” is back with his latest film, “Bigbug.” The artificial intelligence comedy is hitting Netflix on February 11, and the streamer has released a first trailer for the film. Watch below.

Here’s the appropriately weird synopsis, courtesy of Netflix:

In 2050, artificial intelligence is everywhere. So much so that humanity relies on it to satisfy its every need and every desire – even the most secret and wicked…

In a quiet residential area, four domestic robots suddenly decide to take their masters hostage in their own home. Locked together, a not-quite-so-blended family, an intrusive neighbour and her enterprising sex-robot are now forced to put up with each other in an increasingly hysterical atmosphere!

A copyright lawsuit claiming Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” stole from the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Zindel has been dismissed (via The Hollywood Reporter). Both “Shape of Water” and Zindel’s play “Let Me Hear You Whisper” involve plots centered on a creature imprisoned in a science research facility. The lawsuit was originally filed by Zindel’s family in February 2018 just ahead of the Oscar voting deadline. “The Shape of Water” contended for 13 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture and Best Director, among other prizes.

A spokesperson for Searchlight Pictures said in a statement (via THR): “David Zindel, the son of Paul Zindel, author of ‘Let Me Hear You Whisper,’ acknowledges, based on confidential information obtained during the litigation process, that his claims of plagiarism are unfounded. He acknowledges Guillermo del Toro as the true creator of ‘The Shape of Water.’ Any similarity...

Stone Canyon Entertainment has announced the start of production on “Who Are the Marcuses,” a feature documentary about a mysterious couple who donated half a billion dollars to Israel, the largest single gift in the history of the state.

Matthew Mishory is directing, with Stone Canyon’s Bradford Schlei and Alvaro Fernandez producing, and executive producers Marc Bennett and Rhino Films’ Stephen Nemeth. Filming is set to begin in Israel and in Austin, Texas in the first quarter of the year for a 2022 release. The film pieces together the lives of Holocaust refugees Lottie and Howard Marcus (pictured), who lived in a modest San Diego apartment and bequeathed half a billion dollars to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to study water management.

The couple hoped their gift would help bring about regional conflict resolution in Israel and peace through water. The film will explore how they invested their nest egg...

“Not My Mother’s Baking” by Remi M Sali, similarly to “Konpaku” (2019), the debut feature of this Singapore-based director, explores the territory of intercultural and interfaith relations. However, while “Konpaku” was using the elements of horror, this time the mood is entirely different. We get a rom-com combined with a light-weighted family drama and… lots of mouth-watering delicacies. Remi M Sali made use of his experience gained during working on TV culinary shows like “Cinta Kek” or “Delicatessen” to implement some tasty content and a thread of video productions dedicated to foodies and gormandizers.

“Not My Mother’s Baking” is Screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Sarah is still looking for the perfect recipe for her life. Trying to figure out what she wants, the girl is in constant “between” of jobs and projects. Her biggest passion is baking, but it’s not an easy task to step out...

This 80s gem throws up some strange messages for a family film, but its mind-bending meta-mania is a joy to watch under lockdown

See the other classic missed films in this seriesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

It’s a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Back to the Future was released in 1985, four years before I was born, and my early film education consisted of Disney, then Harry Potter, and then any and every romantic comedy. It wasn’t until my final years at school and my decision to study French at university that my cinematic horizons expanded. Following my teacher’s encouragement, I watched Truffaut’s Jules et Jim and The 400 Blows, the Three Colours trilogy, Amélie and Delicatessen. I even branched out into Spanish and a touch of German (The Lives of Others). Unless it was set in Hogwarts or Middle Earth,...

Bong Joon Ho had a lot to celebrate Sunday night, as “Parasite” made history several times over. The South Korean movie was the first non-English language release to win the Oscar for Best Picture, as well as the Best International Feature Oscar. Bong — who also won awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay — had a lot of help from his North American distributor over the last few months, and three-year-old Neon had much to toast as well.

Co-founder Tom Quinn has been positioning the company as an aggressive player since its first awards season, when Neon bought “I, Tonya” at the Toronto International Film Festival and sped into an awards season that landed Allison Janney her first Oscar. Over time, the company has remained a competitive buyer with a robust theatrical strategy that reached its apex with “Parasite.”

Quinn, whose relationship with Bong goes back to the executive’s...

(Welcome to Pop Culture Imports, a column that compiles the best foreign movies and TV streaming right now.) In this week’s Pop Culture Imports, the French would gladly die for love…and liberty, equality, and a good apartment building. This week’s column is dominated by films that come from the land of baguettes and biting social satire. […]

The post Pop Culture Imports: ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,’ ‘Delicatessen,’ ‘Scissor Seven,’ and More appeared first on /Film.

Shoot is underway on Euro co-production thriller A Perfect Enemy starring Tomasz Kot (Cold War), Athena Strates (The Good Liar), Marta Nieto (Madre) and Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen).

The English-language film follows a sophisticated and successful businessman who is approached in an airport by a chatty woman with sinister intentions. Cameras are due to roll until February 2020 in Reus, Barcelona, Paris and Frankfurt.

From Spanish firm Sábado Películas, French outfit The Project Film Club and German’s Barry Films, the feature is an adaptation of novel Cosmétique de l’Ennemi by Amélie Nothomb, which was translated into 24 languages.

Spanish helmer Kike Maíllo directs. Screenplay comes from Cristina Clemente (Eva), Fernando Navarro (Verónica) and Maíllo. It marks the filmmaker’s third film. His debut Eva was awarded a Spanish Academy Goya Award for Best New Director.

Also aboard are Rtve, TV3, Treehouse Pictures and recently-launched Paris-based international sales firm Pulsar Content. The film is supported by Icaa,...

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is going back to his roots. While visiting Los Angeles for a retrospective of several of his films at the American Cinematheque and the USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, the idiosyncratic French director shared details of his plans to make a mockumentary about the production of his beloved 2001 romantic comedy “Amelie” in anticipation of the movie’s 20th anniversary.

Jeunet, whose last completed feature was 2013’s “The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet,” also revealed that he was in the early stages of developing a sci-fi animated feature and a futuristic comedy.

“The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet” received a botched released in the U.S. in 2015 after distributor Harvey Weinstein decided to shelve it as retaliation for the director’s refusal to make cuts.

Since then, Jeunet has been trying to get a project off the ground with mostly discouraging results. “I’ve been fighting to make a...

When Harry Met Sally stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunited with director Rob Reiner on Thursday night at the Tcl Chinese Theatre, kicking off the 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival with a special screening of the Nora Ephron-penned 1989 romantic comedy.

Onstage with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, the trio recounted memorable moments from set, including the origin of the iconic scene in which Ryan’s Sally demonstrates to Crystal’s Harry that women can believably fake an orgasm by feigning one in the middle of Katz’s Delicatessen.

“The idea was to have something women know but men ...

When Harry Met Sally stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunited with director Rob Reiner on Thursday night at the Tcl Chinese Theatre, kicking off the 10th annual TCM Classic Film Festival with a special screening of the Nora Ephron-penned 1989 romantic comedy.

Onstage with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, the trio recounted memorable moments from set, including the origin of the iconic scene in which Ryan’s Sally demonstrates to Crystal’s Harry that women can believably fake an orgasm by feigning one in the middle of Katz’s Delicatessen.

“The idea was to have something women know but men ...

Delicatessen (1991)Growing up in the mid-to-late nineties, the pan-and-scan generation, I can remember the first time I saw a movie that was shot by Darius Khondji. Se7en, the cinematographer’s first American film and best-known work, looked scarier that any movie I’d seen other than The Shining; it was miasmic and biblically unclean, with deep shadows that seeped and stuck like gunk, rain pelting from a pre-apocalyptic sky. Then came The City of Lost Children, a dark storybook fantasy of Gilliam-esque camera angles, about a squalid port town lost in fog and a mad scientist’s lair built on piles out in a sludge-green sea. That one I watched maybe twenty times, always with sympathy for the disembodied brain Uncle Irvin and for Krank, the child-snatching villain who cannot dream.Later there was Alien: Resurrection, the video for Madonna’s “Frozen,” and The Ninth Gate, another movie I had...

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France, has cemented its position as a favorite event for generations of leading international filmmakers with its showcase of classic films and tributes to legendary cinematic heroes.

Launched in 2009 by Bertrand Tavernier and Cannes topper Thierry Frémaux, the president and director of the Institut Lumière, respectively, the event has become one of the largest international festivals of classic cinema.

Last year 171,000 festivalgoers attended, up from 160,500 in 2016.

This year’s honorees and guests at the event, running Oct. 13-21, include such luminaries as Jane Fonda, who is receiving the Lumière Award, Peter Bogdanovich, Stephen Frears, Liv Ullmann, Javier Bardem and Jerry Schatzberg.

In addition to a retrospective of her work that will include such films as “Coming Home,” “The China Syndrome,” “Klute” and “On Golden Pond,” Fonda will bring the festival to a close with a tribute to her father,...

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).

With “Tomb Raider” opening this weekend, and “Ready Player One” right around the corner, we are once again confronted with the grim history of video game movies. The prevailing wisdom is that video game movies are awful, but surely that has to change at some point… right?

This week’s question: What video game should be adapted into a movie?

Kate Erbland (@katerbland), IndieWire

Take this all with a huge grain of salt — I did not grow up with any video game consoles in my home! thus, my knowledge is minimal! — but I am still gunning for a really wild “Grand Theft Auto” feature. Yes, yes, of course there...

Doug Jones, the guy who plays the Amphibian man in "The Shape of Water," is steadfast ... director Guillermo Del Toro didn't steal anything. We got Jones Saturday night in Hollywood leaving Theater West, where he pooh-poohed reports that Del Toro lifted a scene from the 1991 film, 'Delicatessen." Jones insists the film -- which is nominated for Best Picture -- is all original.  Del Toro is also nominated for Best Director.  Truth be told ... Jones...

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the celebrated French director of “Delicatessen” and “Amélie,” has accused Guillermo del Toro of plagiarizing a scene from “Delicatessen” in his 13-time Oscar nominee “The Shape of Water.”

The scene in del Toro’s movie features the characters played by Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins performing a charming two-step dance while sitting on a sofa watching an old Hollywood movie. Jeunet thinks del Toro stole the moment from a similar one between two children in “Delicatessen.” The French director explained to Ouest-France (via The Playlist) that he confronted del Toro about the scene.

“I told [del Toro]: ‘You have a lot of imagination, a lot of talent. Why go and [steal] the ideas of others?'” Jeunet told the French publication. “[Del Toro] said, ‘We owe Terry Gilliam everything.’ According...

With thirteen nominations under its belt, “The Shape Of Water” is the current frontrunner to win big on Oscar night. Almost everyone has swooned for Guillermo del Toro‘s lovely blend of fantasy, romance, monster movie, and classical filmmaker, however, there’s one director with a bone to pick.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has accused del Toro of stealing a scene from his 1991 film “Delicatessen,” and essentially replicating it in “The Shape Of Water.” The sequence in question involves Dominique Pinon and Karin Viard dancing in unison on a bed, while an old musical plays in the background on the television.

Director Ermanno Olmi’s The Legend Of The Holy Drinker (1988) Starring Rutger Hauer will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy September 26th

Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, The Legend Of The Holy DRINKERr is another classic from the great Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs).

Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartack, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances – and his alcoholism – forever intervene.

Working with professional actors for the first time in more than 20 years, Olmi cast Ruger Hauer as Andreas and was rewarded with an astonishing performance of subtlety and depth. Hauer is joined by a superb supporting cast, including Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia), Sandrine Dumas (The Double Life of Veronique...