Looking ahead to the upcoming fall festivals, we’re seeing a lot of artsy indie films, many of them without distributors. Where are the bigger titles? Maybe two sequels from Warner Bros., Joker: Folie a Deux and Tim Burton’s Venice opener Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton again.
But will Joaquin Phoenix accompany Lady Gaga on the red carpet and at the press conference? Will he settle for the Todd Haynes film, which he canceled five days before shooting began, leaving the cast and crew stranded? “Gaga could walk the red carpet alone,” said People’s Nigel M. Smith, our special guest.
With “Wolfs,” George Clooney and Brad Pitt will be joining the star-studded cast in Venice this year; Pitt will be separated for three days at the festival from his ex-wife Angelina Jolie, the leading actress in Pablo Larrain’s “Maria,” a portrait of the opera singer Maria Callas.
And at TIFF, we’ll see Jennifer Lopez, who plays a supporting role in the true story “Unstoppable,” produced by her soon-to-be ex-husband Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. We’ll also see “Nightbitch” star Amy Adams, a long-awaited Oscar nod after six nominations; she’s one of the TIFF Tribute honorees.
Pamela Anderson, star of Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” (Utopia), will also be seen on the red carpet at TIFF. Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton will support Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language film, “The Room Next Door,” in Venice, at TIFF and at NYFF.
Netflix’s potential Oscar titles include the Cannes-made musical “Emilia Perez,” which won the overall award for Best Actress, and Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation “The Piano Lesson,” which was produced by his father Denzel Washington and stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler.
Also expected to make an Oscar appearance is Amazon/MGM’s “Nickel Boys,” which will be shown at the NYFF premiere. It is an adaptation by 2019 documentary nominee RaMell Ross (“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”) based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, and stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in the lead role.
Steve McQueen’s Blitz will open the London Film Festival and will be the main gala at the NYFF. Another British veteran, Mike Leigh, returns to the screen with Hard Truths and will once again appear alongside his Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
This weekend, Zoe Kravitz’s successful directorial debut “Blink Twice” (MGM Amazon) hits theaters. The film stars Naomi Ackie, Alia Shawkat and Kravitz’s fiancé and producer Channing Tatum. The film’s ending is controversial; Kravitz decided against an alternative ending that she had tested with the audience.
As we predicted, the seller of the Megalopolis trailer, which used fake critic quotes from previous Francis Coppola films, has been fired.
We also see far too many disappointing sequels, from Alien: Romulus to The Crow.
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Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and is available on Apple PodcastStitcher and Spotify and hosted by Megaphone. Browse past episodes Heresubscribe Hereand be sure to let us know if you would like to hear the presenters discuss specific topics in upcoming editions of Screen Talk..
