Indie News

“With every end is a new beginning.” Those are the words actor Finn Jones has chosen as his response to the news that “Iron Fist” has been canceled by Netflix after two seasons, sharing a gratitude-filled Instagram post about his experience on the Marvel series. The show weathered a whitewashing controversy prior to its debut and received a more lukewarm reception than fellow Netflix/Marvel dramas “Jessica Jones,” “Daredevil,” and “Luke Cage.”

“I have an enormous amount of love and respect for everyone involved with the last two seasons of this show,” Jones’ post continues. “Defending the greatest city in the world amongst the most talented and warmest people has been a privilege and a joy. Blessed to have taken this journey and grateful for the ongoing support. ”

In addition to “Iron Fist” itself, Jones portrayed the character in the crossover drama “Defenders” as well as the most recent season of “Luke Cage.

Sometimes a film cannot be pinned down to a specific genre. “Diamantino,” which screened during the New York Film Festival this past week, is that perfect example. A hybrid of sci-fi, comedy, fantasy, romance, and surrealism, “Diamantino” defies explanation and follows its own beautifully dark and twisted creative whims.

Read More: New York Film Festival: 15 Must-See Films To Watch

Following Diamantino, a Portuguese football star who is all but disgraced by his own country for missing an vital penalty kick, directors Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt‘s beautifully dreamy original tackles the refugee crisis, genetic modification, neo-fascism, and yes, even giant fluffy puppies in an ambitiously absurdist tale of a guy who is trying to find some kind of redemption and sense of self.

Continue reading ‘Diamantino’: Soccer, Surrealism & Satire Score Big In This Portuguese Oddity [Nyff] at The Playlist.

The fourth and fifth editions of the comic-book series “Star Wars: Shadow of Vader” will no longer be written by Chuck Wendig, who announced his firing on Twitter yesterday. In a lengthy thread, the author cited “too much politics, too much vulgarity, too much negativity on my part” as the reason for his ouster. “Basically, because I was not civil.”

The story goes deeper than that, however, as Wendig says he’s been targeted by abuse from angry readers who disapprove of him introducing the openly gay character Sinjir Rath Velus to the world of “Star Wars.” That led to a flood of negative reviews even before most people had gotten the chance to read “Star Wars: Aftermath,” the 2015 novel in which Velus first appeared.

“I was literally at a midnight release of the book, and when I got done, there were already a pile of one-star reviews piling up – which seemed strange,

Note: This article has spoiler-ish elements in the last graph.

For most directors, space is a blank canvas, an empty screen on which any variety of human potential can be projected. “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” both portrayed the cosmos as infinitely diverse playgrounds of ideas and cultures while in “2001,” Kubrick used space as the setting of the next stage of human evolution.

Continue reading ‘High Life’: In Space, Imprisoned by the Human Condition [Nyff] at The Playlist.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for “Better Call Saul” Season 4.]

“Better Call Saul” Season 4 was more focused than ever on answering the question at the show’s core: By the time “Breaking Bad” Season 2 begins, how did attorney Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) become criminal lawyer Saul Goodman? The season ably answered that inquiry, but required a pretty significant body count.

It has always made sense for “Better Call Saul” to be a less-violent series than its sister show, at least in the early seasons, as that’s when many of these characters are still on the verge of becoming part of the brutal Albuquerque drug scene that consumed Walter White and his many associates. However, that also meant escalation was always a part of the show’s future. Season 4 brought the increased presence of the Salamanca cousins, Lalo and Nacho, whose actions made the drug business even more brutal. Mike committed his first on-screen murder since the flashbacks in “Five-o.

The ’90s were a blessed time for spooky-not-scary TV for kids. Following the same anthology format that resonated with viewers of “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” Nickelodeon introduced “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” to the inaugural edition of its Saturday night Snick lineup in August of 1992. That same summer also saw the premiere of R.L. Stine’s “Goosebumps” series, whose 231 books have sold more than 400 million copies in 32 different languages and spawned a movie franchise that continues with this weekend’s “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween” (is there any other kind?).

It also resulted in a largely forgotten television adaptation that, like much else of its era, lives fondly in the hearts of millennials who face an uphill battle when trying to justify their love of it to anyone else. Most episodes of the hour-long show, each of which is based on one of Stine’s books, weren

Does it matter that Tamara Jenkins’ newest movie, “Private Life,” is only getting one of those mini boutique theatrical releases at the same time being released somewhere into the unknown algorithm wilds of Netflix for the whole nation to see? Would it have been better if this smart and sharp, if occasionally baggy, comedy had gotten just the miniature release in the fall Oscar run-up, then limped along through the end of the year as only small-budgeted character dramas can, before finally ending up on one or the other streaming services anyway?

Continue reading Flinty, Funny ‘Private Life’ Is The Type Of Smart Comedy That Shouldn’t Get Lost On Netflix [Nyff] at The Playlist.

You may not know James Jude Courtney’s name, but you certainly know his latest character: Michael Myers, the masked killer from “Halloween.” Ol’ Jimmy isn’t himself a crazed murderer, but he once lived with an actual hit man who wanted his life story written. The actor recalls this experience in a Vanity Fair interview, explaining that he took said contract killer to see “The Hit List,” a movie he was in, and received the following reaction: “Jimmy, it’s a really nice movie, but that’s not how you kill people.”

“Really?” Courtney asked, to which his new acquaintance responded, “I’m gonna show you how.” Well, all right then.

“There’s a stealth efficiency to the way an actual trained killer works,” Courtney explains. “Movies tend to dilute that quality with dramatic pauses and dialogue, which a true predator would never waste time doing. That efficiency is

It turns out the Iron Fist isn’t so immortal after all. Marvel and Netflix have announced that the maligned superhero drama, which courted a whitewashing controversy prior to airing and has received generally negative reviews throughout its run, has been canceled after two seasons.

Finn Jones played the title character, who also appeared in the crossover drama “Defenders” — a kind of small-screen “Avengers” that saw the Iron Fist team up Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Daredevil (Charlie Cox), and Luke Cage (Mike Colter).

“‘Marvel’s Iron Fist’ will not return for a third season on Netflix,” Marvel and Netflix said in a statement. “Everyone at Marvel Television and Netflix is proud of the series and grateful for all of the hard work from our incredible cast, crew and showrunners. We’re thankful to the fans who have watched these two seasons, and for the partnership we’ve shared on this series.

While being honored at Variety’s Power of Women event earlier this week, Natalie Portman offered a list of guidelines for listeners to abide by in order to bring about gender parity — or at least move closer to it. In addition to pointing out the dispiriting statistic that “only 11% of the top 250 films last year were directed by women,” the Academy Award winner touched on everything from donating to Time’s Up and not depicting violence against women to hiring more women in influential roles.

Portman — back in the Oscar race this year for her performance in Brady Corbet’s “Vox Lux” — also discussed the legal cases of both Brett Ratner and Harvey Weinstein, whom she said have tried to silence their alleged victims. Ratner recently dropped a defamation case against his accuser Melanie Kohler after she received financial assistance from Time’s Up, prompting Portman to note that the

Jorge Garcia is best known to television audiences as the lovable island castaway on ABC’s “Lost” and, more recently, as Jerry Ortega on “Hawaii Five-0,” but he’s on the brink of tackling a very different kind of project: The actor is set to star in his first Spanish-language feature as the lead in “Killing Will Willys,” the directorial debut of Chilean filmmaker Gaspar Antillo, which begins production this week. Netflix will release the project worldwide following a theatrical release in Chile.

The film is the latest project from Fabula, the production company co-founded by brothers Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín. The pair recently wrapped production on Pablo Larraín’s “Ema,” the director’s first feature since “Jackie.” While “Ema” was shot in the coastal city of Valparaiso, the production for “Killing Will Willys” will take place the southern town of Puerto Octay in addition to Santiago.

The

Above: French grande for Capricious Summer. Artist: F. Dervanore.As the 56th New York Film Festival winds down this weekend, I wanted to look back half a century to the 6th edition of the festival. Uppermost in everyone’s minds in September 1968 was Czechoslovakia, which, after a brief seven months of liberation known as the Prague Spring, had been invaded less than a month before the festival began, by Warsaw Pact tanks and troops intended to suppress reforms. Whether it had been planned before the Soviet invasion, the 6th New York Film Festival notably opened and closed with Czech films: Jiri Menzel’s Capricious Summer and Milos Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball. It also featured Jan Nemec’s previously banned 1966 film A Report on the Party and the Guests which had been released in ’68 under the reformist president Alexander Dubček and shown as a special event on Czech national

Well, he’s a hero for hire now, and perhaps it was inevitable. Netflix has canceled their first Marvel show: “Iron Fist” will not be coming back for a third season.

Read More: Netflix’s ‘Iron Fist’: The Supporting Cast Steals The Show In The Greatly Improved Season 2 [Review]

In a joint statement released to the media on late Friday, Netflix and Marvel said, “Marvel’s Iron Fist will not return for a third season on Netflix.

Continue reading Hero For Hire: Netflix Cancels Marvel’s ‘Iron Fist’ at The Playlist.

I was skeptical about another Bill Cunningham documentary. I mean, Richard Press’s Bill Cunningham: New York (2010) was so good, why would you even bother? Cunningham’s pretty charming, but he is, after all, a fairly insignificant figure—he was just a staff photographer for the Times, right? And indeed, the film does cover mostly the same ground as its predecessor. As an aesthetic object, admittedly, it’s not particularly imaginative. Director Mark Bozek presents us mostly with Cunningham’s voice and Cunningham’s images. And yet, surprisingly, I enjoyed and was moved by this movie more than by almost any of the other films I saw at the festival because it gave us the portrait of a vibrant human intelligence. And what should art be, other than that?The movie’s structure is simple: Bozek had interviewed Cunningham on video once back in 1994. Originally planned as just a simple ten-minute talk,

“Light as a Feather” is Hulu’s teen horror adventure with a mystery as engrossing as it is grotesque, and just creepy enough to scratch that Halloween itch without keeping you up at night. When popular high-school-clique leader Olivia (Peyton List) invites new girl Violet (Haley Ramm) to hang out with them at the cemetery on Halloween, Violet insists they play the party game Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. Before attempting to lift or “levitate” each girl, she is told an elaborate story about how she’ll die. When one girl ends up perishing exactly as predicted, the rest are left scrambling to figure out who or what they’re up against before they also end up dead.

Hulu has already been representing the horror genre well with the excellent “Castle Rock” and Blumhouse’s new anthology movie series “Into the Dark.” In dipping its toes into the teen horror well,

It’s a busy week for new releases, as Timothée Chalamet grapples with drug addiction in “Beautiful Boy,” while Damien Chazelle’s lunar epic “First Man” finally makes its way into theaters, and Paul Greengrass’ harrowing depiction of the mass shooting in Norway “22 July” makes its way to Netflix. None of these movies are guaranteed commercial hits, but that doesn’t mean they can’t break through the noise, as they’re all vying for attention in an increasingly dense awards season. So who has the upper hand — and how will the upcoming festivals impact an unpredictable field? In this week’s episode of Screen Talk, Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson assess the current players while talking through the quality of these very different films. They also weigh in on recent reports of discord at Annapurna Pictures, and how that might impact some of its fall titles, including “Sorry to Bother You

In between shooting the WWII thriller “Operation Finale” and participating in the international press tour for “Star Wars: Episode VIII,” Oscar Isaac squeezed in a very different project: The actor flew to the south of France to play Paul Gauguin opposite Willem Dafoe’s Vincent Van Gough in “At Eternity’s Gate,” painter-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel’s intimate portrait of Van Gough’s final days. Though Isaac spent only five days on the set, he welcomed the opportunity to escape thinking about the “Star Wars” Resistance fighter all day long.

“It was a real relief to get on set with Julian because the nature of the way he films is so different from the way a Hollywood movie gets filmed,” said Isaac in an interview before “At Eternity’s Gate” screened as the closing-night selection of the New York Festival. “There were no rules, no boundaries, no lights, no marks. There was an energy to it,

Is there anything that Michaela Coel can’t do at this point? The writer and actress came to people’s attention a few years back when her stage show “Chewing Gum” became a British comedy series, picking her up a BAFTA and fans in the U.S thanks to a growing cult following on Netflix. Since then, Coel’s continued to impress as she’s moved into more dramatic territory — first with a couple of roles in “Black Mirror,” then more recently in Hugo Blick’s excellent BBC miniseries “Black Earth Rising” alongside John Goodman (which will also head to Netflix globally in the new year).

Continue reading Michaela Coel Shines In Likeable Netflix Musical ‘Been So Long’ [Lff Review] at The Playlist.

Following a number of changes at the comedy website, Funny or Die has confirmed that co-founder Adam McKay is no longer a part of the company. The “Vice” and “The Big Short” director, who established FoD with Will Ferrell and Chris Henchy in 2007, made his displeasure with a three-part series sponsored by Shell called “Glowing Up Fast” known earlier this year.

“Let me be really clear: this is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. I’m shocked and horrified Fod did this. More to come,” McKay — who frequently voices his thoughts on climate change and the corporations he believes are exacerbating the problem — tweeted in January.

“Lately, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to stories and projects that mean a lot to me — big money, corporate entanglements and global warming. Given Funny Or Die is driven by ad revenues, I felt the time had come for me to step down,

Chinese movie legend Chow Yun-fat says he plans to give his entire net worth, a whopping $5.6 billion Hkd (that’s $714 million Usd) to charity. “My dream is to be a happy and normal person,â€. Yun-fat recently told Hong Kong movie site Jayne Stars. “The hardest thing in life is not about how much money you earn, but how to keep a peaceful mindset and live the rest of your life in a simple and carefree manner.â€. The same site reported earlier that the actor claimed to spend only $800 Hkd ($102 Usd) per month.

Apparently, he stays frugal by taking public transportation as often as possible and doing charity work instead of spending it on himself. He also had a Nokia phone for 17 years (we can only assume it’s a flip phone), and only upgraded to a smart phone recently, when his Nokia one stopped working. He shops at discount clothing stores,