Variety 04/03/2024

Kirsten Dunst has always been an actress who moves to her own drumbeat. An auteur-loving indie queen, Dunst is every bit at home in the world of studio blockbusters. (Just ask anyone at Sony Pictures, where Dunst’s Mary Jane in the 2000s “Spider-Man” series set the template for decades of sharp, unexpectedly shrewd Spidey girlfriends.) In her latest film, she’s brought both worlds together. Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is the largest movie yet from boutique distributor A24, with a budget of $55 million. But it’s still an A24 movie, with all the intimate character detail and envelope-pushing that implies. The film, which opens on April 12, is set in a dystopian America, divided and in the process of destroying itself. Dunst plays Lee, a war photographer intent on chronicling the…

miamifilmfestival.com LOS FRIKIS WORLD PREMIERE SATURDAY, APRIL 6 – 7 PM KNIGHT CONCERT HALL Directed by Tyler Nilson & Michael Schwartz USA, Dominican Republic 2024 | 105 min Spanish with English subtitles Inspired by true events, Los Frikis is a powerful coming-of-age story set in 1990s Cuba. Eighteen-year-old Gustavo (Eros de la Puente) idolizes his older brother Paco (Héctor Medina) and his punk “Frikis” bandmates. When a reprieve from the economic crisis that plunged the country into poverty materializes, they do the unthinkable: inject themselves with HIV to live at the government-run treatment home. Los Frikis is the latest film from filmmaking duo Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz (The Peanut Butter Falcon produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), and co-stars rising talent Adria Arjona. This screening is part of…

Scandal at a film festival is usually generated by provocative auteurs or loose-lipped actors stirring up drama at press conferences. Last weekend’s laid-back Sonoma International Film Festival, held in the heart of California wine country, was a different story. Numerous indie film players spotted Sundance Film Festival director Eugene Hernandez at the event, alongside his two predecessors in the role: John Cooper, who left in 2020, and Tabitha Jackson, who stepped down in 2022. All three were in town to screen films and mingle when the eye-popping news spread that Joana Vicente, CEO of Sundance Institute, had resigned her post after less than three years. Surely these observers found the right pinot noir to pair with whispers about what Vicente’s exit means for Sundance — the 40-year-old non-profit founded by…

When the Writers Guild of America went on strike last May, union leaders argued that artificial intelligence posed an existential threat to writers, painting a picture of a dystopian future in which TV shows might be crafted by one writer and a machine. Ten months later, the tone in Hollywood labor circles has shifted significantly. At a March 3 rally in Los Angeles, Matthew Loeb, international president of IATSE, argued that AI has the potential to make union members’ jobs easier. “We want some of the spoils of artificial intelligence,” Loeb said. AI is high on the agenda as IATSE looks to set a new three-year contract with Hollywood’s major studios and streamers before the July 31 expiration of its current deal. Like the other unions that have struck new…

Across his seven-decade career, Louis Gossett Jr., who died March 29 at 87, delivered one indelible performance after another — notably his Emmy-winning portrayal of Fiddler in 1977’s “Roots” and his defining turn as hard-nosed drill sergeant Emil Foley in 1982’s “An Officer and a Gentleman.” With that performance, opposite Richard Gere’s cocky Navy cadet Zack Mayo, Gossett became the first Black actor to win a supporting actor Oscar. Here, Gere and Colman Domingo — who shared the screen with Gossett in 2023’s “The Color Purple” — pay tribute. Colman Domingo There is a moment in “The Color Purple” that our wunderkind director, Blitz Bazawule, set up for the great Louis Gossett Jr. and me that is one of the most memorable of my entire career. It is a silent…

When Michael Douglas was invited to play Benjamin Franklin in Apple TV+’s “Franklin,” he immediately took out a $100 bill. “I looked at Ben and thought, ‘I’ve got a long ways to go,’” the two-time Oscar winner says. Douglas didn’t just worry that he’d have to spend hours in the makeup chair — the series took more than 160 days to shoot. He was also nervous that heavy prosthetics would hurt his performance. “Your persona has gotta come through,” he says. But Douglas’ fears were groundless. Director Tim Van Patten and producer Richard Plepler had no intention of hiding his face under a rubbery nose and jowls. “They looked at me like, ‘You schmuck. We’re not going to do that to you,’” Douglas recalls. Based on Stacy Schiff’s “A Great…