Innholdsfortegnelse for 9/5/2023 i Variety

Harmony Korine used to be a movie junkie, someone who’d watch anything and everything. These days, when people recommend a movie, “I’ll look at it and I feel nothing, like dead inside,” says the guy whose own films, from “Spring Breakers” to the controversial screenplay for Larry Clark’s “Kids,” are nothing if not disruptive. “Watching a lot of this shit, you really feel the algorithms,” he says the day before receiving the Pardo d’onore Manor prize at the Locarno Film Festival. Whereas, “I’ll see a clip on TikTok that is so inexplicable. … Like, I can have an experience with a 30-second clip that goes so far beyond” what movies do for him. TikTok. YouTube. Video games. Those are the influences operating on Korine’s latest feature-length provocation, “Aggro Dr1ft,” which…

It’s a rainy day in New York City, and Maya Hawke is telling me about her short-lived attempt to call her father ‘Ethan’ on the set of their new film, “Wildcat.” We’re escaping the downpour at a cozy neighborhood restaurant in Chelsea, and sitting across from the striking father-daughter duo is like having a front-row seat to the royal family of art-house cinema. “I started using his name — ‘Ethan’ — to be like, ‘I’m a professional,’” the 25-year-old “Stranger Things” actress says. “And then I realized it was actually more distracting to people. They’d be like, ‘Why are you doing that?’ So I mostly called him ‘Dad.’” Such is life when you’re a Gen Z “It” girl whose father is a Gen X icon. But there’s very little celebrity polish to…

Close to You DIRECTOR Dominic Savage Star Elliot Page co-wrote with director Savage and produced this special presentation slot drama. Page plays Sam, who has a chance encounter with an old friend (“Sound of Metal” actor Hillary Baack) en route to a dreaded family reunion that forces him to confront long-buried memories. UTA is handling sales. Hit Man DIRECTOR Richard Linklater Linklater muse Glen Powell stars in this under the radar action-comedy, bowing at Venice out of competition before TIFF. CAA Media Finance and Cinetic Media are repping U.S. rights, while AGC is handling international. In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon DIRECTOR Alex Gibney Gibney’s a superstar in the nonfiction world, and Simon is a musical heavyweight — a good combination for a doc feature that should draw…

AWARDS CIRCUIT The shows have been screened, panels attended, activations experienced, voting secured and the last free shrimp eaten. And now … we wait for January. The most unusual Emmy season in recent memory breaks for a lengthy spell as the Oscar awards calendar takes over and faces some of the same limitations as the TV Academy with simultaneous WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Normally, of course, the end of voting on Aug. 28 would have been followed by Television Academy peer group cocktail parties, the Creative Arts Emmys in early September and then a weeklong litany of shindigs leading up to the main Emmys ceremony — including Variety’s annual showrunners’ dinner celebration, which (and perhaps I’m biased here) is always my favorite event of the entire gantlet. That’s all on…

For its fifth annual tiff Tribute Awards Gala fundraiser Sept. 10, the festival has lined up stellar names: directors Spike Lee and Pedro Almodóvar, Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau (who will be feted Sept. 15), producer Shawn Levy, actor Colman Domingo, cinematographer Łukasz Żal and Brazilian director/writer Carolina Markowicz are those included on the list. “Spike has inspired audiences and made a lasting impact on the art of filmmaking,” says tiff ceo Cameron Bailey, who calls Lee “a foremost storyteller of our era.” He also praised Almodóvar’s “artistic vision, bold storytelling, and unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of cinema.” “Zone of Interest” cinematographer Żal is Variety’s Artisan Award honoree. “We have been fans of his work from ‘Ida’ and ‘Cold War’ and with his most recent film, ‘The Zone…

FILM REVIEW Director: Bradley Cooper Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer In “Maestro,” playing the legendary American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, Bradley Cooper has a light in his eye — a glow of merriment and mischief, of gleeful cosmopolitan desire. His Lenny is a prodigy, a prankster, a seducer, a monk of creative devotion and, through it all, a man of epic contradiction. In public, he tends toward the proper and stentorian; in private, he’s recklessly exuberant enough to give new — or maybe old — meaning to the word gay. He’s a layered soul, a quality that extends from his professional life, where he’s a reverent conductor of the classics and a jubilant composer of Broadway musicals (as well as a serious composer who longs to be…

It’s back, baby. As summer winds down and fall festivals begin, it’s time for awards season. Hope and uncertainty are in the air as studios, streamers and their army of Oscar strategists gear up for the long slog of getting their movies in front of voters — all in pursuit of those golden baubles. The 2023-24 edition promises to be memorable, as it will unfold against the backdrop of two strikes, an upcoming presidential election and a spirit of belt-tightening by major media companies. As Hollywood braces for the ups, downs and twists in the quest to win big at the Academy Awards, here are five burning questions consuming the movie business. 1 Is it Bradley Cooper’s turn at the podium? Talk about long overdue. Cooper partnered to electrifying effect…

Gambling is often full of risk, but it may also be the surest bet that stressed executives in the frenzied media business can make. Disney last month became the latest of the traditional media conglomerates to hook up with purveyors of sports wagering. Under terms of a deal struck with Penn Entertainment, Disney’s ESPN stands to receive $2 billion in cash and warrants over 10 years from the gambling firm. In return, ESPN will help market a new sportsbook, ESPN Bet, by incorporating the name into its shows and other on-air content. “It has become a big part of storytelling,” Mike Morrison, ESPN’s vice president of sports betting and fantasy, says about betting. ESPN runs a show called “The Daily Wager” that is devoted to oddsmaking. And he sees more…

Before cameras ever start rolling on a RadicalMedia movie, staffers are already busy strategizing about where it should eventually premiere. The company, which boasts “The Fog of War” and “Summer of Soul” among its many credits, routinely consults an exhaustive chart that lays out the deadlines to submit a movie to major festivals like Cannes, Sundance and Toronto. “There’s no guarantee that you’ll get invited, but it’s important to have a plan,” says Jon Kamen, CEO of RadicalMedia. “Each festival has their own unique personality that makes it the perfect fit for certain kinds of work.” In the case of RadicalMedia’s “Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero,” a documentary that follows the pop star behind “Old Town Road” on his first global tour, that ideal launching spot was always the Toronto…

TV REVIEW Drama: Apple TV+ (8 episodes; all reviewed); Sept. 8 Starring: LaKeith Stanfield, Clark Backo, Adina Porter Fairy tales can easily bend and twist into nightmares, which is the core sentiment of Apple TV+’s adaptation of Victor LaValle’s award-winning novel “The Changeling.” In the series, a young father, Apollo Kagwa (LaKeith Stanfield), embarks on a desperate search for his wife, Emma Valentine (Clark Backo), after she vanishes following a horrific incident shortly after the birth of their first child. LaValle, who narrates the eight-episode series, set his book in New York City — across decades and realms, infusing Norwegian fairy tales with elements from the Black American experience, Ugandan traditions and magical folklore. Regrettably, pulling all that together in a television adaptation has proven impossible for writer Kelly Marcel.…