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11 hours ago
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‘Jane Austen Wrecked My Life', ‘The Last Rodeo', ‘Friendship' Counterprogram ‘Lilo & Stitch' & ‘Mission: Impossible' Holiday Weekend
Sony Pictures Classics is out with Jane Austen Wrecked My Life in limited release, Angel Studios' The Last Rodeo opens wide and A24's Friendship added screens with few new indies braving the double whammy of live action Lilo & Stitch and Paramount's Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning. The former may have set a Disney record for Memorial Day weekend previews, Deadline reports, while Tom Cruise's high octane eighth outing as Ethan Hunt may have set a record preview night for a Mission: Impossible. More from Deadline 'Friendship' Rocks As Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd Bromance Expands - Specialty Box Office 'Friendship' Moves To Top Ten Markets, Star Tim Robinson's Hometown Detroit; 'Sister Midnight', 'The Old Woman With The Knife' - Specialty Preview 'Friendship' Skyrockets To Top Limited Opening Of 2025 For Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd Comedy - Specialty Box Office Jane Austen in her own right 'has become a bit of a rock star in the marketplace,' SPC brass rightly noted when the distributor acquired the feature debut by Laura Piani ahead of its TIFF world premiere last year. It's opening on 61 screens in select markets including Lincoln Square and Angelika Film Center in New York and the AMC Grove and Laemmle Royal in LA. SPC is planning a nationwide bump next week to about 500 runs. Stars Camille Rutherford as Agathe, a hopelessly clumsy yet charming young woman who works in the legendary Shakespeare & Co. bookshop in Paris. She dreams of being a successful writer and of experiencing love akin to a Jane Austen novel but finds herself desperately single and plagued by writer's block. When Agathe's best friend (Pablo Pauly) gets her invited to the Jane Austen Writers' Residency in England, she finally has her Jane Austen moment. Certified Fresh at 85% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Angel Studios opens by Jon Avnet (Fried Green Tomatoes, Black Swan, Risky Business) on 2,205 screens. Stars Neal McDonough (who also co-wrote) as a retired rodeo legend who risks it all to save his grandson. Facing his own painful past and the fears of his family, he enters a high-stakes bull-riding competition as the oldest contestant ever. Along the way, he reconciles old wounds with his estranged daughter Sally (Sarah Jones) and proves that true courage is found in the fight for family. Produced in association with the Professional Bull Riders Association. Also stars Christopher McDonald and Ruve McDonough. Written by Avnet, Neal McDonough and Derek Presley. This is Angel's third partnership with faith-based McDonough Company after 2023 thriller The Shift and post-apocalyptic drama Homestead, slated for release December 20. A24s starring comedian Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) and Paul Rudd has a big week 3 expansion to about 1,200 screens from 60. After a great limited opening at 6 theaters it rocked an expansion to 60 last week with $1.4 million and a no. 7 spot at the domestic box office. The R-rated directorial debut of Andrew DeYoung follows a bromance gone bad between two suburban dads. Comedy from Menemsha Films opens on four screens in NYC with Q&As at the Quad. Follows a $17k week and $110k run in Florida and a $225k cume from select showings. Expands to San Francisco May 30 and LA the following week. Directed by Daniel Robbins, it star Kyra Sedgwick, Cliff 'Method Man' Smith, David Paymer, Milana Vayntrub, Jon Bass, Meghan Leathers, Theo Taplitz, Catherine Curtin, John Bedford Lloyd and Ashley Zukerman. David and his fiancée Meg are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner on New York's Upper West Side when an accidental death (or murder?) gets in the way. With Meg's Catholic parents due any moment, this family dinner soon spirals into disaster. Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. from Vertical, written and directed by Warwick Thornton, produced by and starring Cate Blanchett, is having a 7-day limited theatrical run before hitting VOD May 30. Set in 1940s Australia at a remote monastery with a mission for Aboriginal children run by a renegade nun, Sister Eileen (Blanchett). A new charge (Aswan Reid) is delivered in the dead of night, a boy who appears to have special powers. But the boy's Indigenous spiritual life does not mesh with the mission's Christianity and his mysterious power becomes a threat. Sister Eileen is faced with a choice between the traditions of her faith and the truth embodied in the boy. Premiered at Cannes in 2023, see Deadline review. Restoration: Akira Kurosawa's , the director's re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear transposed to medieval 16th century Japan, starts a run at New York's IFC Center and Laemmle Royal in LA to celebrate the epic's 40th anniversary. The 4K restoration is being re-released by New York-based Rialto Pictures. Resting after a wild boar hunt, warlord (Tatsuya Nakadai) decides to divide his domain among his three sons. A battle ensues between color-coded armies, a castle burns to the ground. Designed from the director's own watercolor storyboards, the film had four Oscar nominations including Best Director, Cinematography and Art Direction, with Emi Wada winning for costumes. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'The Testaments,' Sequel Series To 'The Handmaid's Tale' So Far
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Hence the sensibility
This muted, somewhat melancholy and very French approach to the Jane Austen update (mostly in French with English subtitles, with a smattering of English) has many low-key charms. The settings, central characters and lead performances are all lovely, in an understated way. Still, considering Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is partly a love letter to writing and writers, this romantic comedy from debut French filmmaker Laura Piani is a bit patchy when it comes to story. Agathe (Camille Rutherford of Anatomy of a Fall) is a would-be novelist who works at Paris's historic English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Company. (Bibliophiles will be happy to see the bookish scenes are shot at the actual store.) Sony Pictures Classics Agathe is a would-be novelist looking for inspiration. Finding herself stalled out, both in her love life and her attempts to write a love story, Agathe compares herself to Jane Austen's Anne Elliot, the heroine of Persuasion who fears her chance at happiness has passed. This could change, though, when Agathe is pushed by her best pal, Félix (Pablo Pauly of The French Dispatch), into attending the Jane Austen Residency, a two-week writers' retreat at a beautiful Georgian house in the English countryside. Agathe finds herself experiencing some romantic confusion when Felix sees her off at the cross-Channel ferry with a surprisingly passionate kiss. This perplexity is compounded when she's picked up on the British side by the arrogant but attractive Oliver (Charlie Anson, who's done offbeat Austen before in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). Oliver, who works at the Residency, happens to be Jane Austen's 'great-great-great-great nephew,' though he finds Austen's writings 'a little overrated and limited in scope.' Piani, who has worked mostly in French TV (Spiral, Plan B), is dealing with the gambit faced by all Austen-related projects: her film has a built-in audience, but that audience has very exacting standards. Here Jane Austen functions mostly as a hook, which might disappoint some superfans. Agathe's story holds a generalized Janeite spirit, but the specific literary references are slight. (It should also be noted that the movie is not related to the 2009 novel Jane Austen Ruined My Life by American author Beth Pattillo. Confusing!) Agathe, like Austen herself, is a doting aunt and fond sister, and like many Austen heroines, she finds herself choosing between two men while trying to figure out her own moral and emotional development. Sony Pictures Classics Félix (Pablo Pauly, left) and Agathe are just friends, or are they? There's certainly a Pride and Prejudice vibe to Agathe and Oliver's frosty initial meeting, with Oliver channelling a bilingual Mr. Darcy with just a touch of Hugh Grant's Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility. And while Félix is a great best friend, Agathe worries he's maybe a bit too much like Mansfield Park's Henry Crawford, a compulsive charmer who can't commit. Still, for all the callbacks to Austen's early 1800s canon — Piani even supplies a Regency-costumed ball, with much dancing and glancing — this is a very 2020s work. Agathe sometimes feels as if she was 'born in the wrong century,' but her story is modern and French, with a lot of striped shirts, good coffee, alcohol and cigarettes — and also a bit of nudity and sex. There is some sisterhood with Bridget Jones. Agathe doesn't quite reach Bridget's level of comic klutziness, but she can be awkward and a little self-effacing. (When Félix suggests Agathe suffers from impostor syndrome, she tells him she's 'a genuine impostor.') And as with many modernized Austen heroines, Agathe is not dealing with social constraints — with not enough choice — but rather with too much choice. This especially applies to the wide-open options of what she calls 'Uber sex' and 'digital dating,' which she finds mostly involves guys tiptoeing out of her bed at night and trying not to wake her up. As a contemporary woman, Agathe is also struggling with work, in this case the writer's horror of the blank page, compounded by a past trauma she hasn't come to terms with. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. This outline of Agathe's character arc sounds good, but with the film's swift 98-minute runtime, the outline is never quite filled in. Agathe's relationships with the other Residency participants, with the two men and even with herself remain vague. Sony Pictures Classics Like many Jane Austen heroines, Agathe (Camille Rutherford) finds herself choosing between two men. At one point, Agathe is arguing with an aggressive critical theorist about the purpose of literature, and she says she wants novels to reflect back to her what it means to be human. The film has bits of quiet humour, some less successful attempts at slapstick and some poignant scenes, but these beautiful moments don't quite add up to a fully developed story. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life could use a little more reflection. arts@ Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. 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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina Dies: Algerian Cannes Palme D'Or Winner Was 91
Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa's only Cannes Palme d'Or to this day, has died at the age of 91. Lakhdar-Hamina's family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on May 23. More from Deadline Richard Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' Draws Raft Of International Buyers For Goodfellas - Cannes Sony Pictures Classics Takes North America & Multiple Territories For Cannes Caméra D'Or Winner 'The President's Cake' Doc Talk In Cannes: Deadline Podcast Hosts American Pavilion Panel On Challenged State Of Documentary Industry In quirk of fate, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film's Palme d'Or, in the presence of the director's son Malek Lakhdar-Hamina. Set between the late 1930s and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, exploring the roots of the movement and depicting the harshness of French colonial rule. In an era in which the film world had yet to start embracing diversity, Lakhdar-Hamina was one of the few African and Arab directors to put in a regular appearance in Cannes from the 1960s to the 1980s. He competed for the Palme d'Or four times, with his other contenders including The Winds of the Aures, which won the best first film prize in 1967 (now known as the Caméra d'Or), as well as Sandstorm (1982) and Last Image (1986). After a 30-year break, he returned to the director's seat with Twilight of Shadows, which was Algeria's submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 88th Academy Awards in 2016. Lakhdar-Hamina was born on February 26, 1934, in M'sila in the Aurès region in northeastern Algeria into a farming family. His filmography was shaped by his experiences in the Algerian resistance during the War of Independence from 1954 to 1962, as well as the death of his father at the hands of the French army. Lakhdar-Hamina joined the Algerian resistance in Tunis in 1958, where he did an internship with Tunisian news, which led to him shooting his first short films. From there, he went on to study at the Prague film and TV school FAMU. Aside from his own filmmaking, Lakhdar Hamina ran Algeria's news service, the l'Office des Actualités Algériennes (OAA) from shortly after the revolution to 1974, and was also head of the Algerian National Office for Commerce and the Film Industry between 1981 and 1984. The 4K restoration of Chronicles of the Years of Fire was undertaken by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna at L'Image Retrouvée (Paris) and L'Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna) laboratories. It was funded by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation as part of the African Film Heritage Project, an initiative created by The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project, the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) and UNESCO – in collaboration with Cineteca di Bologna – to help locate, restore, and disseminate African cinema. French distributor Les Acacias Distribution will theatrically re-release the film in cinemas in France on August 6. Best of Deadline 'Hacks' Season 4 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Everything We Know About 'Hacks' Season 4 So Far 'The Last Of Us': Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
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Doc Talk In Cannes: Deadline Podcast Hosts American Pavilion Panel On Challenged State Of Documentary Industry
Another glamorous Cannes Film Festival has ended, after an exciting fortnight on the Côte d'Azur that drew the likes of Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Pattinson, Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, Kristen Stewart, Bono and many others. Stars of documentaries also turned up: Shia LaBeouf, whose exploits as founder of a free theater company in L.A. are chronicled in Slauson Rec, and Julian Assange, focus of the documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man. The latter film, directed by Eugene Jarecki, won a Special Jury Prize, marking the 10th anniversary of the L'Oeil d'or award, which goes to the top documentary at Cannes. Imago, directed by Chechen filmmaker Déni Oumar Pitsaev, took the 2025 L'Oeil d'or prize. More from Deadline Doc Talk Podcast Goes International, Reporting From Poland's Millennium Docs Against Gravity Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Including Palme D'Or Winner 'It Was Just An Accident' Sony Pictures Classics Takes North America & Multiple Territories For Cannes Caméra D'Or Winner 'The President's Cake' For the first time, Deadline's Doc Talk podcast traveled to Cannes to record interviews and to moderate a panel at the American Pavilion. Today's episode of the show is built around our AmPav discussion on the state of the documentary industry, which featured panelists Vanessa Hope, director of Invisible Nation; Joe Tufano, VP Distribution at Submarine Entertainment; and Catherine Quantschnigg, Noah Media Group's Producer, Sales. Tufano explains how documentary filmmakers increasingly are moving to a territory-by-territory approach to sell their features in the absence of acquisitions for worldwide distribution. Hope tells us why she considered going the self-distribution route in the U.S. for her award-winning film that explores Taiwan as it contends with almost daily threats from mainland China. And Quantschnigg reveals how the distribution landscape has changed dramatically in only a few years since Netflix acquired Noah Media Group's acclaimed film 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible. That's on the latest edition of the Doc Talk podcast, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline's documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley's Nō Studios. Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple. Best of Deadline 'Hacks' Season 4 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Everything We Know About 'Hacks' Season 4 So Far 'The Last Of Us': Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sony Pictures Classics Takes North America & Multiple Territories For Cannes Caméra D'Or Winner ‘The President's Cake'
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and India for Cannes Caméra d'Or winner The President's Cake by Iraqi director Hasan Hadi. The film, which debuted in Directors' Fortnight, also proved a crowdpleaser in the Cannes parallel section, winning its People's Choice audience award. More from Deadline Janus Films Acquires Bi Gan's Cannes Prize-winner 'Resurrection' For North America Sergei Loznitsa's 'Two Prosecutors' Scores Fresh Deals For Coproduction Office - Cannes Netflix Buys Richard Linklater's 'Breathless' Homage & Love Letter To Cinema 'Nouvelle Vague' In Record Domestic Deal For A French-Language Movie Deadline critic Pete Hammond also fell for the film describing it as a 'a true gem and a real discovery'. Check out his review here. New York-based Hadi has tapped into his own childhood in southern Iraq in the 1990s, growing up under the regime of President Saddam Hussein and the socio-economic crisis provoked by international sanctions, for the film. The drama follows nine-year-old Lamia who gets the short straw of having to provide a birthday cake for her classmates to celebrate the president's birthday. Gathering the ingredients for the mandatory cake at a time of shortages is a monumental task but failure to deliver could lead to prison or death for her family. The movie is produced by Leah Chen Baker with executive producers including award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and director Marielle Heller (Nightbitch, Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood). The film is made in association with Missing Piece Films, Working Barn Productions, Maiden Voyage Pictures and Spark Features. 'Winning the Caméra d'Or in a year with so many formidable directorial debuts and winning the Audience Award in the Directors' Fortnight, Hasan Hadi's The President's Cake is the surprise hit of this year's festival. In the tradition of major Cannes discoveries, these ovations and critical acclaim mark the beginning of a fresh voice destined to thrill audiences everywhere,' said Sony Pictures Classics. 'Since childhood, Sony Pictures Classics has been the go-to name for quality cinema and original storytelling. It's a dream come true—and a true honor—to now be part of that legacy. Their incredible history of championing international films and commitment to theatrical releases makes them the perfect home for The President's Cake,' added Hadi. The film was negotiated between UTA Independent Film Group, WME Independent and Sony Pictures Classics. Films Boutique represents international sales. Hadi is repped by UTA and Jonathan Gardner. The Sundance Film Institute and Doha Film Institute are among the many supporters of the film. Best of Deadline 'Hacks' Season 4 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Everything We Know About 'Hacks' Season 4 So Far 'The Last Of Us': Differences Between HBO Series & Video Game Across Seasons 1 And 2
