Latest news with #Memento
Tom's Guide
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
5 best Prime Video thrillers to stream right now
Want to add some heart-pounding excitement to your next streaming session? One of the best streaming services around, Amazon's Prime Video, is home to a large catalogue of top-notch film titles, especially when it comes to the thriller genre. Though they may take the form of an action movie or a horror favorite or a foreign flick, thrillers all have the same thing in common: They pack in plenty of pulse-pumping suspense and tension, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats as they watch characters navigating dangerous terrain, seemingly impossible mysteries and high-stakes situations. If it's plot twists, unreliable narrators and an ever-growing sense of impending danger you're after for your next movie marathon, satisfy your desire for thrills and chills with the 5 best Prime Video thrillers to stream right now. Long before the likes of "Inception", "Interstellar" and "Oppenheimer", writer-director Christopher Nolan was bending our brains with his 2000 neo-noir thriller "Memento." Guy Pearse stars as Leonard Shelby, a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia — resulting in short-term memory loss — who culls together Polaroid photographs, handwritten notes and his own tattoos to uncover the perpetrator who murdered his wife, Catherine (Jorja Fox). And if it sounds like a straightforward thriller, it's anything but. Nolan plays with both style and structure throughout, alternating between black-and-white and color sequences as well as chronological and reverse-chronological order. Altogether, it makes for a dizzyingly excellent watch, with a solid ensemble that includes Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano and Stephen Tobolowsky. Watch "Memento" on Prime Video now Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Directed, co-written and co-produced by celebrated South Korean director Park Chan-Wook, this 2016 erotic thriller and crime drama tells the sensual tale of two women: Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), a Japanese heiress living a secluded life on a countryside estate, and Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a Korean woman hired to serve as her new handmaiden. But the maid has a few professional secrets than her CV seemingly let on: She is actually a pickpocket who has been recruited by a conman (Ha Jung-woo) to help him seduce the lady and steal her large fortune. Inspired by the Victorian novel "Fingersmith" by British author Sarah Waters, Chan-wook uses the book as "the loose inspiration for another visually sumptuous and absorbingly idiosyncratic outing," per critics on Rotten Tomatoes, where the BAFTA-winning thriller has a 96-percent approval rating. Watch "The Handmaiden" on Prime Video now The first of Jennifer Lawrence's four Academy Awards nominations — she would go on to win the Best Actress trophy for her memorable turn in "Silver Linings Playbook" — was for the harrowing 2010 drama "Winter's Bone", which sees the A-lister star as 17-year-old Ree Dolly, an unflinching Ozark Mountain girl tasked with caring for her mentally ill mother while raising her 12-year-old brother Sonny (Isaiah Stone) and 6-year-old sister Ashlee (Ashlee Thompson). When the already destitute family is at risk of losing their home due to the crimes of her drug-dealing father, Ree is forced to navigate dangerous social terrain to hunt him down and keep a roof over the family's head. Led by a steely, star-making performance by Lawrence, "'Winter's Bone' is a welcome reminder that thrillers don't have to be loud and boisterous to grab the attention and keep it captive," writes film critic James Berardinelli. Watch "Winter's Bone" on Prime Video now One of Joaquin Phoenix's most intense performances—and that's saying something—comes courtesy of this 2017 hitman thriller, written and directed to taut perfection by Lynne Ramsay. The actor hauntingly plays Joe, a traumatized hired gun who specializes in rescuing trafficked girls and uses brutal methods against their captors, all while dealing with his own PTSD that stems from his past in the military and his abusive father. When Joe is tasked with rescuing Nina Votto (Ekaterina Samsonov), the kidnapped daughter of a New York State senator, he is forced to reckon with not only high-level corruption and abuses of power but also his own childhood trauma. "Bracingly elevated by a typically committed lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix, ;You Were Never Really Here' confirms writer-director Lynne Ramsay as one of modern cinema's most unique—and uncompromising—voices," reads the critical consensus over at Rotten Tomatoes. Watch "You Were Never Really Here" on Prime Video now "Contagion" obviously takes on even greater poignancy in a post-COVID society, but it still prompted chills aplenty when it debuted back in 2011: directed by Steven Soderbergh, the medical disaster thriller chronicles the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that quickly and terrifyingly turns into a worldwide pandemic. (Sound familiar?) With a starry ensemble that includes Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and Gwyneth Paltrow, the film frantically follows the medical community racing to find a cure and control the rising panic, while the rest of society tries not to spin out of control. Playing into real human fears—one that we, sadly, know all too well — "Contagion" was praised by The New Yorker's David Denby "as a highly controlled film about an out-of-control event, a film so sure-handed and intelligent that it has an invigorating, even an enlightening, quality, as if a blurred picture had suddenly come into focus." Watch "Contagion" on Prime Video now
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Slauson Rec' Review: Shia LaBeouf Inspires Wannabes — and Frequently Turns on Them — in an Intimate Chronicle of His Theater Experiment
Slauson Rec, drawn from several years' worth of intimate video recordings of an experimental theater company, is a sincere exploration of collective creativity. It's also the latest chapter in the Shia LaBeouf saga, the stuff of professional acclaim and offscreen headlines. Although LaBeouf isn't the author of the documentary, he is the architect of the project it chronicles. You might call him the brutalist. First-time director Leo Lewis O'Neil, who also handled all the camerawork, was one of the 200 or so people who responded to LaBeouf's 2018 Twitter video announcing the formation of a free weekly theater workshop at the Slauson Recreation Center in South Los Angeles. Most were, like O'Neil, young and ardent admirers of the actor, who at that point was between movies and had a different kind of creative itch to scratch. Unlike the others, O'Neil wasn't interested in performing, but, 'desperate to be part of anything he did,' offered his services as archivist for the 'social science experiment,' as LaBeouf himself would later, ruefully, describe it. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Chronology of Water' Review: Kristen Stewart Makes a Boldly Assured Directing Debut, Starring a Transformative Imogen Poots Spike Lee Toasts 'Highest 2 Lowest' With The Hollywood Reporter and Threads at Cannes Bash Ruben Östlund's 'The Entertainment System Is Down' Sells to Memento for France Drawn from footage Lewis shot over a seven-year period, with most of it from the school's three-year run, Slauson Rec records the stops and starts, the anything-can-happen electricity as bonds form, ideas blossom and strangers take chances together. Lewis was there for the frustrations and breakthroughs, the elation when things clicked and, increasingly, the meltdowns. As time went on, he found himself in the midst of a slow-motion train wreck. A significant portion of the film's running time involves LaBeouf, in all his mercurial splendor, losing his shit. He rants. He fumes. He storms off. On a couple of occasions he gets physical with members of the troupe. But this is no quick-hit gotcha. It's clearly a personal story for Lewis, who was new to L.A. and alone when he ventured to the rec center and found not just something to do but a family. Poring over the group's dynamics, he wants to understand what drove its leader. He might even want to help him exorcise the bad vibes. He bookends the main events with an interview with an older-and-wiser LaBeouf, married and raising a child with Mia Goth and copping to the 'god complex' that drove him to make others suffer for his art. There's more than a little hyperbole in LaBeouf's mea culpa when he calls the unintended results of his behavior 'fascistic.' And the documentary's ample running time — two and half hours — might be interpreted as an endorsement of the epic significance that LaBeouf attached to his Slauson Rec Theater Company. Yet the doc is by no means a slog. It's sensitively shot and sharply edited, and its energy flows. The same intensity that LaBeouf brings to his acting pours out of nearly every interaction he has in the film. Whether he's enraged or kvelling, he has such a compelling way with words, and such an animated physicality, that he's almost endlessly watchable. Almost. The dramatic exits lose their drama after a while. And there are quite a few of them, especially when rehearsals are in full swing for 5711 Avalon, the innovative pandemic-era production that would be Slauson Rec's biggest and last production. Slauson Rec might be a more inviting and effective experience if it were expanded slightly and reshaped into a two- or three-part cable docuseries. We don't need nitty-gritty details, but a bit more info about the multimedia play 5711 Avalon would have been a welcome substitute for some of the repetitive instances of behind-the-scenes conflict, as watchable as they are. (It's not hard to imagine some of those sequences as grist for a future episode of Documentary Now! That's a compliment.) Actors Bobby Soto and Donte 'Bo' Johnson, who met LaBeouf on the set of The Tax Collector, were his co-founders in the theater company, but there's no question that he's the head honcho, the raison d'être. Decades earlier, the charismatic maverick John Cassavetes had done something similar, pouring his own Hollywood money into a Los Angeles theater project. Unlike Cassavetes, LaBeouf had no famous actors in his troupe, and it would take a while before he focused on scripted material. In the early months, workshop sessions are devoted to movement-based 'devised theater,' with an emphasis on improvisation and collaborative creation. The school's numbers dwindle as those seeking more conventional acting lessons fall away. Among the ones who stay, spirits run high, and there's a fevered excitement as the group plans its first public performance, with LaBeouf enthusing over 'probably the best thing I've ever been a part of.' In an interview conducted at his hillside aerie, the actor emphasizes his hunger to create with others. But it isn't long before harsh rebukes punctuate his encouragement. Notably, his first major tantrum happens on a day when he points out that he hasn't been to AA much that week. Months earlier, the five-minute personal introduction that LaBeouf delivered to kickstart the group's first meeting revealed a narrative shaped by outsiderness, trauma, alcoholism and recovery — no surprise to anyone who has seen Honey Boy, the autobiographical feature he penned and starred in. That movie, shot and released around the same time as his Slauson Rec project was taking shape, revolves around LaBeouf's troubled relationship with his manipulative father. Now, under Lewis' vigilant eye, we see LaBeouf turning into an explosive paternal figure, one who declares his love 'conditional' and taunts the group with angry reminders of his beneficence. 'I'm doing everything!' he sputters in response to disappointing read-throughs. In addition to LaBeouf's mounting volatility, there are tensions within the group over its role in the immediate community — a crucial question for the arts in general in a country of extreme economic disparity. Then comes the COVID shutdown, bringing that disparity to the fore without truly addressing it. But, with 5711 Avalon, LaBeouf & Co. tried. Born of the pandemic and very much about it, the play is set in a COVID testing site. Fueled by a Hollywood star's earnings, it's a play that focuses on frontline workers. It would be rehearsed and performed in a South L.A. parking lot, and when it opened in October 2020, famous people — Jaden Smith, Sean Penn — showed up for the drive-in experience. O'Neil zeroes in on three castmembers who find themselves at the receiving end of LaBeouf's invective: Sarah Kaplan, Sam Walker and Ezekiel 'Zeke' Pacheco, an ambitious actor from South L.A. who books a role on Netflix's On My Block during rehearsals but remains committed to the play. Amid the underlying stress and uncertainty of the pandemic, LaBeouf is masked and dangerous, his outbursts a shocking mix of self-awareness and loss of control. Though not a performer, O'Neil is clearly a full-fledged and well-liked member of the troupe, and the time he spends away from rehearsals with Kaplan and especially Pacheco, offering glimpses of their families, is fueled by profound affection. At one point during one of LaBeouf's parking-lot freakouts, O'Neil zeros in on a little kid in the next-door backyard, watching through the fence in alarm and amazement. You get a sense that the filmmaker wishes he, too, could toddle away and not give this grown-up but childish drama a second thought. But, finally, Slauson Rec is defined by gratitude and love no less than hurt and confusion. Pointing his camera at the man who bought it for him, he sees someone fumbling toward grace. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes According to… Super Agent Jeremy Barber
Best bargain in Cannes? There are no bargains in Cannes. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Chronology of Water' Review: Kristen Stewart Makes a Boldly Assured Directing Debut, Starring a Transformative Imogen Poots Spike Lee Toasts 'Highest 2 Lowest' With The Hollywood Reporter and Threads at Cannes Bash Ruben Östlund's 'The Entertainment System Is Down' Sells to Memento for France Favorite meal in Cannes? Tie between La Pizza and Le Maschou. Most overrated restaurant? Does anyone actually answer this question? Biggest Cannes faux pas? Attempting to attend a film at the Palais wearing a sneaker shoe and/or a non-bow tie with your tux. Best place to grab a drink after 3 a.m.? Hotel du Cap. Place to avoid during the festival? The lobby of literally any hotel along the Croisette. Biggest Cannes pet peeve? The crowds and traffic. Cannes guilty pleasure? The movies … all of the movies. Strangest request you've ever received in Cannes? When I worked at Artisan, I was asked/told to creep down a hallway at the Majestic Hotel and listen under the door to hear how much a competitor was offering for a movie we wanted to buy. Most interesting celeb encounter? Watching the sun rise at the Eden-Roc as Bruce Willis DJ'd following the Armageddon premiere and the bar was emptied of its contents. One thing you won't travel without, besides your phone? My backup phone … Attitude toward timing/reporting on standing ovations at premieres? I am not a fan of any reporting on the length of time someone spends standing and cheering, or for that matter doing anything else. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ruben Östlund's ‘The Entertainment System Is Down' Sells to Memento for France
French distributor Memento has acquired the distribution rights to the star-studded upcoming film The Entertainment System Is Down from director Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness, The Square) for France. The darkly satirical movie is set on a long-haul flight between England and Australia where the entertainment system fails, and passengers are forced to face the horror of being bored. The ensemble cast includes Kirsten Dunst, Daniel Brühl, Keanu Reeves, Nicholas Braun, Julie Delpy, Tobias Menzies, Connor Swindells, Daniel Webber, Wayne Blair, Dan Wyllie, Lindsay Duncan, Allan Corduner, Sofia Tjelta Sydness, Erin Ainsworth, Myles Kamwendo, Elle Piper, Thibaud Dooms, Sanna Sundqvist, Tea Stjärne, Swedish artist Benjamin Ingrosso and Sanjeev Bhaskar. More from The Hollywood Reporter June Squibb on Her Nonagenarian Career High: "A 70-Year-Old Will Say, 'I Want To Be You When I Grow Up!'" Cannes: Wes Anderson Teases His Next Film Cannes: Wes Brings The Whimsy in 'Phoenician Scheme' Press Conference Previous sales of the project include A24 for the U.S., Lionsgate Films (U.K.), Alamode Film/Wild Bunch Germany (Germany & Austria), Lucky Red/Teodora Film (Italy), Sharmill Films (Australia & New Zealand), Elevation Pictures (Canada), Elastica/BTeam Pictures (Spain), September Film (Benelux), Bord Cadre Films (Switzerland), Gutek Film / Aerofilms (Eastern Europe), Feelgood Entertainment (Greece), Alambique Filmes (Portugal), Filmstop (Baltics), Sun Distribution Group (Latin America), Falcon (Middle East), and Road Pictures (China). World sales are handled by Coproduction Office. The Entertainment System Is Down is produced by Plattform Produktion (Sweden) with Essential Films (Germany) and Parisienne de Production (France). Co-producers include BBC Film, Film i Väst, Sveriges Television, ARTE France Cinéma, ZDF/ARTE, SF Studios, Eye Eye Pictures (Norway), Paloma Productions (Denmark), and Good Chaos (U.K.). The film is produced in association with Proton Cinema, Bord Cadre Films, Sovereign Films, Cinema Inutile, and Gold Rush Pictures. Financing was secured through the Swedish Film Institute, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), the Norwegian Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute, with participation from Canal+, Disney+ and ARTE France, as well as support from Creative Europe Media. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
France's Memento Buys Harry Lighton's Sexy Romance ‘Pillion' Ahead of Cannes Premiere to Complete Big Festival Slate
Alexandre Mallet-Guy's Memento has bought Harry Lighton's sexy romance 'Pillion' which is world premiering in Un Certain Regard. The Paris-based Memento, which is at Cannes with three movies in competition, will release the A24 movie in France. Speaking to Variety, Mallet Guy said, 'It's a gay BDSM rom-com, and it's pretty wild.' More from Variety Brazil Brings Tropical Flair, a Sense of Resurgence to Marché du Film Opening Party 'Eddington' Review: Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal Square Off in Ari Aster's Brazenly Provocative Western Thriller, Set During the Pandemic the Film Says Made America Lose Its Mind Japanese Horror 'Never After Dark' Acquired by XYZ Films From 'House of Ninjas' Team (EXCLUSIVE) 'Alexander Skarsgård plays the biker, and Harry Melling, who you might know from 'Harry Potter,' plays the submissive. The film is hilarious but also quite disturbing, simply because it's a romantic comedy set in such a specific, unconventional world. But it really works — it's surprisingly emotional, and there's something incredible about seeing two stars take such bold risks,' he added. Memento's Cannes competition lineup includes Joachim Trier's 'Sentimental Value,' Jafar Panahi's 'A Simple Accident' and Tarik Saleh's 'Eagles of the Republic,' as well as Laura Wandel's 'Adam's Sake' which opened Critics Week. Speaking of Wandel's film, 'Adam's Sake,' Mallet-Guy said he had 'a real shock' after he read the script which he describes as 'a true page-turner.' 'The story unfolds almost in real time: an hour and thirty minutes in a hospital, with about an hour and fifteen minutes actually filmed. You're in total immersion as you follow the chief nurse and the mother of a young child who's been hospitalized, and their confrontation is absolutely gripping,' he said. Trier's 'Sentimental Value,' meanwhile, will appeal to fans of the Norwegian's work, Mallet-Guy predicts. 'It's very melancholic, very beautiful, and above all, it's a family story,' he said. The film follows a family across generations, with flashbacks, all centered around a single house. The house itself transforms depending on who's living there, with each person's memories attached to different rooms. The producer-distributor also spoke about Panahi's film and said it's 'deeply rooted in the current realities of Iranian society. 'It's a very politically engaged work, powerfully connected to its time.' Mallet-Guy's relationship with Panahi dates back to 'Taxi Tehran' which was a major success in France where it sold 600,000 admissions. It marked the second-biggest success for Iranian cinema here after 'A Separation,' which did 1 million tickets in theaters. Memento then handled 'Three Faces,' which was also selected in competition at Cannes. This latest film, 'A Simple Accident' is co-produced by the French company Les Films Pélléas, the production company behind 'Anatomy of a Fall' and is co-produced by Bidibul Productions and Pio &Co.'Eagles of the Republic,' which Memento co-produced, reteams Mallet-Guy with Saleh after 'The Nile Hilton Incident' and 'Boy From Heaven,' a pair of commercial and critical hits that traveled around the world. Mallet-Guy said 'Eagles of the Republic' – once again set in Egypt — marks 'without a doubt, Tark Saleh's most ambitious film to date —not just in terms of budget, but also in its political engagement.' 'It begins with the tone of a black comedy and gradually shifts into a political thriller with elements of espionage. It's a bold, exciting film.' The movie is produced by Unlimited Stories, a major Swedish company, Tarik's own Paraton, and Memento. 'This is actually the biggest budget we've ever had for an Arabic-language film. Funding films in Arabic is never easy, but thanks to the support of Canal + and Arte, we've managed to make it happen,' Mallet-Guy said. Memento has been increasingly involved in production in the last few years. It recently announced the next film by two-time Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, 'Parallel Tales,' which will shoot in Paris with a powerful cast, including including Isabelle Huppert ('Elle'), Virginie Efira ('Benedetta'), Vincent Cassel ('Black Swan'), Pierre Niney ('The Count of Monte Cristo') and Adam Bessa ('Ghost Trail'). 'We've always produced one or two films a year, but lately, we've been putting more focus into it,' Mallet-Guy noted. Memento is also backing several Asian filmmakers. The banner is working on the next film by Chinese director Diao Yinan, who won the Golden Bear for 'Black Coal, Thin Ice' and then we made 'The Wild Goose Lake,' which competed at Cannes, and is developing a new project with 'Black Dog' director Guan Hu. The company's upcoming French distribution titles includes Marc Fitoussi's latest film, currently shooting in Paris with Isabelle Huppert, who plays an extra and Sandrine Kiberlain, who plays herself as a French film star. It's produced by Caroline Bonmarchand, and marks a new collaboration between Fitoussi and Huppert after 'Copacabana.' Another title is Martin Provost's new film, 'Demain Je Tombe Amoureux,' featuring Fabrice Luchini in the lead, with Carole Bouquet, Emmanuelle of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
