Film

Film

Considering the oeuvre of Stuart Gordon, "restraint" is rarely a word that comes to mind. From the bloody extremes of Re-Animator to the farcical comedy of Stuck, Gordon was the master of, as Roger Ebert put it when reviewing Dolls, "glorious exercises in bad taste, wretched excess, and blood-soaked horrors." If Ebert was unconvinced by the "more elegant, civilized, artistic and clever" Dolls, it did lay the groundwork for a movie that gels Gordon's bloody best with his unerring desire to understand who we are, deep down, which pervades all his films-even if often obscured by buckets of blood.

Jennifer Lawrence has been acting in films for almost two decades. Some of her films, such as "American Hustle" and "Winter's Bone," have been critically adored. In a time when movie stars are few and far between, there's no doubt that Jennifer Lawrence is a true A-list icon. She's been in 26 movies across her career, been nominated for four Academy Awards (winning one), and starred in two billion-dollar franchises ("X-Men" and "The Hunger Games").

Noah Baumbach loves to find sympathy in unsympathetic subjects-the awkward title character of Greenberg, the caustic writer played by Nicole Kidman in Margot at the Wedding, the bitter divorced couple of Marriage Story. But he's usually done it by mixing in plenty of bitter with just a touch of sweet. For his new movie, Jay Kelly, that formula is reversed in service of another character who might struggle to earn the viewer's pity: a bored, aging movie star worried that he's lived life the wrong way.

Yoo Capital (the same folk behind west London's Olympia) has submitted plans to Camden Council to build what is essentially going to be the UK's answer to Hollywood. In the £1 billion proposal, the real-estate investment firm wants to transform under-used industrial land in Kentish Town into a purpose-built district for film production, with homes, green spaces and education facilities.

If you're my age and you like watching stuff blow up real good, you know the definitive Arnold Schwarzenegger movie canon. That canon includes a handful of now-established science-fiction masterpieces ("The Terminator," "Terminator 2," "Total Recall"), but it also accommodates for the small handful of low-fidelity masterpieces that became unforgettable thanks to Arnold's sheer force of personality. Arnold made two such films in the year 1987 alone.

When filmmaker Alex Bush received their acceptance to Ari Aster and Lars Knudsen's Square Peg Social (SPS), something shifted. "Just being accepted felt like a huge weight of confidence," said Bush, whose short film "Thaw" premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. "It was really affirming to be spoken to by these people in this way of, 'Yeah, so you as someone who's going to be doing this and who's already doing this.'"

which is why, after she took her own life at the height of the COVID lockdowns in 2021, her grieving family turned to the master documentarian to finish her last film. It was an impossible task since, as Berliner put it, "I could never duplicate the mystery and beauty that Benita always brought to her work." So instead of completing a final act, Berliner chose to craft a collaboration, a magical cinematic conversation of sorts, between himself and his mentee.

Here is a movie promising the juiciest of real-life stories from history. Before the Nazi war-crime trials at Nuremberg that started in November 1945, an obscure US army psychiatrist called Dr Douglas Kelley was ordered to interview the prisoners, chief among whom was Hermann Goring. This was supposedly to establish their fitness for trial, but was really intended to gain inside information as to how they would conduct their defence.

The gathering has the vibe of a pilgrimage, the preparations unfolding with quasi-religious grandeur. Several enormous speakers, arranged on a dance floor of sand, have the coldly inanimate majesty of the monoliths in "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), as if they were sonic portals, transmitting pulses from an alien dimension. The music that pours forth, composed by the electronic artist Kangding Ray, is magnificently transporting, and the ravers surrender to the beat with glorious delirium.

Michael J Fox has already eked out four books of Hollywood memoir, so the justification for a fifth written with longtime collaborator Nelle Fortenberry ought to be good. It is: the subject of these 176 pages is a three-month period in 1985 when Fox was simultaneously shooting his breakout sitcom role in Family Ties and the career-defining American classic, Back to the Future. That's two more-than-full-time jobs for one little guy, necessitating that the then 23-year-old actor work 20-hour days, six days a week.

The long and fabled history of Monty Python has now reached its footnotes and afterthoughts era. After years of interpersonal disputes, multiple forays into the culture war and one very expensive divorce, 85-year-old John Cleese goes solo with a thin 80-minute travelogue, undertaking a European mini-tour while enduring a roll call of ailments (partial deafness, bone spurs, vertigo) which appears at least as substantive as his onstage material.

For the past few years, horror cinema has sometimes felt as fraught with toxic romance as a particularly cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are mostly blood-stained hell, and a couple going to a secluded location together is a fresh level of it.

From cool concerts and shows to delightful animation and apple tart deliciousness, there is a lot to do and eat this weekend. So let's get to it, shall we? (As always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines or other details.) Meanwhile, if you'd like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or www.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters.

Where Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution absolutely excels for both fans and the uninitiated is in its visuals and sound design. Intense, bombastic showdowns incorporate everything from gore to monsters to visual design of earth-shattering beauty. The apocalyptic cityscapes, ominous sunsets and genuinely eerie subway battle sequences pulsate with off-the-wall creatures and grotesque villains. The soundtrack is genuinely banging, accompanied by really top notch voice acting.

The trailer sees Bronte's star-crossed lovers, Catherine (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) meeting first as children, then becoming tangled in a torturous love affair as adults in the West Yorkshire moors. What would you do, Heathcliff, if you were rich? Robbie's Cathy asks Elordi's Heathcliff. I suppose I'd do what all rich men do, he answers. Live in a big house, be cruel to my servants, take a wife.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Hawke was only 13 when he made his first film, Explorers. He became a star at 18 with Dead Poets Society. More than 30 years later, he's still acting, except now when he gets a script he forgets he's no longer a young guy. "I'll be sent a script and it says, 'Billy, age 19, skateboarding down the street,' and I think, 'Oh that's my part,'" Hawke says. "It takes me a while to realize, 'Oh, Billy's father, age 55, gruff and weathered around the edges. ... Oh, that's me."

After losing an anticipated $45,000 in federal funding, an institution of the Bay Area film scene is in financial trouble. San Francisco Cinematheque, a longtime champion of avant-garde film, is at risk of laying off and drastically cutting its programming, director Steve Polta told SFGATE. For years, Cinematheque has relied on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which makes up approximately one quarter of its annual budget of $200,000.

A luminous bow hovers in the darkness as if suspended in the sky while the arena-like stage is filled with smoke. A figure emerges: Katniss Everdeen, the girl from District 12 in Suzanne Collins' post-apocalyptic universe, played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film franchise. With her appearance, the 74th Hunger Games begin and no special effect is spared. Closely following the plot of Collins' first book in the young adult series, and the Lionsgate film of 2012,

From cool concerts and shows to delightful animation and apple tart deliciousness, there is a lot to do and eat this weekend. So let's get to it, shall we? (As always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines or other details.) Meanwhile, if you'd like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or w.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters .

Mashable and Focus Features are teaming up for advance screenings to bring Hamnet to keen viewers ahead of release (at no cost). There are still spots left for the San Francisco screening! Details: Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, 7 PM PT AMC Metreon 16 - 135 4th St #3000, San Francisco, CA 94103 You will be allowed to bring a guest. Please plan to arrive early as seating is on a first-come basis and tickets are not guaranteed.

You kissed me during an SNL sketch and then apologized afterwards for opening your mouth too much. Be honest, did you do that on purpose?

Yasmin Rufo and Eleanor Shearwood Johan Persson In a corner of London's Canary Wharf, better known for finance than fireballs, The Hunger Games: On Stage has bought Panem to life in a purpose-built 1,200 seat arena. The show is an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' bestselling dystopian novels, made into a film franchise starring Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson, in which teenagers are selected to fight to the death in a televised spectacle.