Brian De-Palma: Celebs Rumors

Dennis Harvey Film Critic A movie directed by the berserk “Muppet Show” character known as Animal couldn’t be any more unruly than Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s new film of that title. This sporadically fun but exhausting hot mess provides 202 minutes of hyperventilating overkill for star Ranbir Kapoor as a tycoon’s favorite son whose anger-management (as well as daddy) issues are off the charts.

friends, little or large, joining Tony Montana at the Oscars Sunday night. The stage was set for Al Pacino, 83, to appear with Michelle Pfeiffer, 65, to present Best Picture and all signs pointed to a reunion of 1983’s smash hit “Scarface,” which was released 40 years ago in December 2023.However, audience members were shocked to see the Academy Award-winning actor take the stage solo to present the final award of the evening.Pfeiffer was kept from the ceremony for “personal family reasons” that prevented her from making it to Los Angeles, according to Deadline.The camera did, however, notice one of Pacino’s other notable costars from “The ‘Godfather” franchise and focused on Robert De Niro, cheering him on in the crowd.Without building much suspense, Pacino, who received a standing ovation as he took the stage, did not list any of the the 10 Best Picture nominees before announcing “Oppenheimer” as the winner.The pair had starred as Tony Montana (Pacino), a Cuban refugee turned drug kingpin, and Elvira Hancock (Pfeiffer), his cocaine-addicted girlfriend, in the remake of the 1932 film of the same name.“Scarface,” directed by Brian De Palma, never received any Oscar nominations after its release.

All evening, the Oscar ceremony appeared on course for a Scarface reunion of Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer to introduce the final award for Best Picture.

Ellise Shafer Martin Scorsese was lauded with the Berlin Film Festival‘s honorary Golden Bear on Tuesday night, celebrating a lifetime of achievement in cinema. As he accepted the award, Scorsese — whose most recent film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is currently up for 10 Oscars — reflected on his career thus far and even teased a return to the festival “in a couple years.” Scorsese was introduced by German director Wim Wenders, who is also Oscar-nominated for his latest feature, “Perfect Days.” Wenders told a hilarious story, complete with a photo slideshow, about one of his earliest interactions with Scorsese at the Telluride Film Festival in 1978, where he came upon the director and his then-girlfriend Isabella Rossellini on the side of the road with a flat tire.

Ed Meza @edmezavar An ambitious new production company is making waves in Germany, where it’s following up its successful 2020 comedy pic debut with a stylish erotic thriller that harkens back to Hollywood classics of the 1980s. Launched in 2020 by Andreas Kröneck and Antonio Fernandes Lopes in the southwestern Baden-Württemberg city of Heilbronn, Hnywood is aiming high with plans to recapture the cinematic magic of yesteryear, including Edgar Wallace masked-killer mysteries and sexy swashbuckling space operas.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Presence,” a ghost story directed by Steven Soderbergh, is set entirely inside a lovely, renovated, 100-year-old suburban home, and before the characters even have a chance to move in, the place is already occupied. The camera literally seems to be peering at things, staring out the second-floor windows, then coming down the stairs to witness the arrival of a harried real-estate agent, then the family of four she’s about to sell the house to. Darting from room to room in an unbroken wide-angle-lens shot, the camera gives us an impromptu tour of the house, letting us drink in the crisp mint-green walls, the vintage wood that lines everything (windows, doors, stairway, fireplace), the ancient smoke-glass mirror and polished oak-board floors and elegant sprawling kitchen.

Ernst Goldschmidt, the sales agent who co-founded Orion Pictures and oversaw distribution of some of the previous century’s biggest movies, has died aged 92.

The New York Times’ Robert Shelton commented on the pair’s appeal, calling them “a pair of tart-tongued singing comedians” and writing: “It is a result of a good deal of musical acumen and a fresh type of stinging satire, directed at a field wide open for it – folk music. The pair use a merciless variety of musical and comedy devices to smother the folk-song craze in wit.” Shelton particularly praised Tom for being responsible for “a bulk of the humour”.In the early 1960s, the Smothers Brothers made frequent appearances on television programmes including The Judy Garland Show, Burke’s Law and The Ed Sullivan Show, before finally debuting their own comedy show, The Smothers Brothers Show, in 1965.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Universal has long wanted to reboot “Scarface,” Brian de Palma’s 1983 crime classic starring Al Pacino as a powerful Miami drug lord. Multiple directors have circled the reboot over the years, including Antoine Fuqua, Luca Guadagnino and David Ayer. The latter director boarded “Scarface” the year after his “Suicide Squad” grossed $747 million worldwide despite negative reviews.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italian cinema is in the spotlight at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles where the screening series “Ennio Morricone: Essential Scores from a Movie Maestro,” programmed in partnership with Cinecittà, is currently playing to sold-out audiences. The Oct. 6-Nov.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic A femme fatale is in the business of fooling people, though we’ve seen enough of these characters to be overly familiar with their tricks. Maybe that’s why, in 2023, the most effective femme fatale is one who can fool the audience. Take Stéphane (Laure Calamy), the desperate young woman at the center of the delectable French family thriller “The Origin of Evil.” The film’s rather abstract title could refer to several things, but the most accurate is probably the cliché that first leaps to mind: Money is the root of all evil.

Facebook Monday.She died just one week before her 85th birthday.“For more than 50 years, our lives were intertwined through our mutual love of literature, writing, and acting,” Scott wrote of her late “Dark Shadows” co-star.“We could not have been more unalike, and therein lay the magic of our enduring friendship. My thoughts are with her family in this sad time of grief and remembrance.”Parker’s daughter, Caitlin Hawkins, confirmed her mother’s death in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.Before kickstarting her career in entertainment, Parker enrolled in Vassar College in New York, where she roomed with none other than Jane Fonda.She later completed her undergraduate degree at Southwestern at Memphis, which is now Rhodes College, before graduating from the University of Iowa with a master’s degree in drama.She went on to marry her first husband, Tom Parker, and the pair welcomed two sons, Rick and Andy during their time living in Wisconsin.Lara then decided to kickstart her acting career, and traveled to NYC where she landed a role in Dan Curtis’ series, “Dark Shadows.”During her stint on the six-season-strong show, the actress starred in a film based on the series, “Night of Dark Shadows,” in 1971.A year prior, she starred alongside Robert De Niro in Brian De Palma’s “Hi, Mom!”After wrapping “Dark Shadows,” Lara relocated to LA to continue expanding her onscreen portfolio, including a role in the 1973 drama “Save The Tiger,” which earned Jack Lemmon a Best Actor Oscar.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Carrie,” the 1976 Cinderella-goes-to-the-bloodbath horror film that gave Piper Laurie, who died Oct. 14 at 91, the role for which she’ll probably be best remembered, is the movie that changed my life. I was 17, home for the Thanksgiving weekend of my freshman year at college.

Piper Laurie, whose impressive work in the films Carrie and The Hustler made her a screen icon, died Saturday morning in Los Angeles. She was 91 and had been ill for some time.

McKinley Franklin editor She’s not just Hollywood’s new mistress — Slayyyter is officially Hollywood’s “Starfucker.” One of pop music’s best-kept secrets, Slayyyter has been chasing new levels of stardom since 2018 when the now 26-year-old first started releasing self-made hyper-pop tracks on SoundCloud. Five years later, she’s taken on the self-proclaimed title of “Hollywood Starfucker,” a campy moniker she uses to reference her tumultuous ascent in the social hierarchies of Los Angeles. “Starfucker” is also the title of Slayyyter’s sophomore record (out now via Fader Label), a 12-song collection that sees her transcending her pop-centric roots to expose the gritty realities of nightlife and a heightened sense of awareness about fame over racy club tempos.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic I have seen the future of cinema, and it is “Aggro Dr1ft,” a neon-hued outlaw eyegasm from the director of ”Spring Breakers.” There will likely never be another film like it. Even so, it’s clear that Harmony Korine’s immersive iridescent plunge into the world and psyche of a serial killer points the way down fresh avenues for the medium to explore.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Sex, crime and fish tanks converge in the officially titled “Pet Shop Days,” Olmo Schnabel’s directorial debut which will play in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Variety has an exclusive first look at the project starring Jack Irv, Dario Yazbek Bernal and Willem Dafoe. Schnabel, son of Oscar nominated director Julian Schnabel, tells the story of two young men falling down a rabbit hole of rebellious desire – one running from a traumatic incident and a bitter authoritarian father, the other a privileged drifter in search of himself.

Robert Swan, an actor familiar from sometimes brief but noticeable roles in Hoosiers, Rudy, The Untouchables and The Babe, died of cancer today at his home in Rolling Prairie, Indiana. He was 78.

Ethan Shanfeld Mark Margolis, who portrayed the menacing, bell-ringing Hector Salamanca in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” died Thursday at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 83.

Director Christopher McQuarrie previously revealed that a flashback segment that would have de-aged Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One was briefly considered.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” director Christopher McQuarrie revealed before the film opened in theaters that he rejected de-aging Tom Cruise for a 1989-set opening scene. Now on a new episode of “The Empire Spoiler Special Film Podcast” (via /Film), the filmmaker dropped that he considered reaching out to Julia Roberts to de-age her as well for the scene that never happened as planned.

Jaden Thompson Cinespia has announced a handful of additional September screenings to round out their 22nd summer season at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The latest additions include “The Devil Wears Prada” on Sept. 2, “The Goonies” on Sept.

Jordan Moreau Ray Price, an indie film producer and marketing veteran, died on July 16 of heart failure after battling cancer, his longterm partner Meg Madison confirmed. He was 75. During his career in film, Price was president of Francis Ford Coppola’s production company American Zoetrope and First Look Pictures and a marketing and distribution exec for Landmark Theatres, Trimark Pictures and 2929 Entertainment. He also supported up-and-coming filmmakers like Tran Anh Hung (“The Scent of Green Papaya”), Gurinder Chadha (“Bhaji on The Beach”), Carl Franklin (“One False Move”), Allison Anders (“Gas Food Lodging”) and John Sayles (“The Secret of Roan Inish”).

Joe Leydon Film Critic The stunt work was sensationally spectacular and Tom Cruise did much dauntless derring-do. But some may forget that when the “Mission: Impossible” series first began in 1996, there were heated arguments about the franchise’s big screen debut. Some critics were positively incensed that the heroic lead character in the popular 1966-1973 TV series that inspired the film had been reconstituted in Brian De Palma’s big-screen reboot as a treacherous turncoat.

Andrea Evans, the two-time Daytime Emmy nominated actor who rose to fame in the 1970s and ’80s as the troublemaking teen Tina Lord on the ABC soap One Life To Live, died Sunday of cancer. She was 66.

Daytime drama actor, Andrea Evans, has died at the age of 66.

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The Weeknd is speaking out about all the criticism surrounding The Idol.

Charna Flam Gary Kent, the actor, director and stunt performer who also served as one of the inspirations for Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” died on May 25 in Austin, Texas, The Austin Chronicle confirmed. He was 89. Kent began his career as a seasoned stunt performer after to traveling to Los Angeles in 1958. Ahead of doubling for Jack Nicholson in Monte Hellman’s “Ride in the Whirlwind” and “The Shooting,” Kent worked in film production offices and acted on the side, appearing in “Legion of the Doomed,” “King of the Wild Stallions,” “Battle Flame,” “The Thrill Killers” and “The Black Klansman.”

Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part One,” the seventh film in the franchise, is due out this July, while “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part Two” will be unleashed next June. If, somehow, you’ve never seen any of the “Mission: Impossible” movies, they began in 1996 with the Brian De Palma-directed original, an adaptation of the popular, Bruce Geller-created spy series that ran from 1966 to 1973 for 172 episodes and was revived briefly in the late 1980s (that version only ran for two seasons and 35 episodes).

Todd Gilchrist editor “Fair to middling” is how Angie Dickinson is feeling this morning as she talks about “Rio Bravo,” the 1959 film that made her a star. “Somebody who says they’re great at 90, you can figure out that they lie a lot.” It’s a line that could have come straight from Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett’s script for the film — and a reminder that Dickinson’s gift for delivery isn’t dependent on working with a brilliant director, though she has many times in her seven-decade career. Dickinson has more then 350 screen credits — an enormous body of work that includes “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 1960 original), “Point Blank” and “Dressed to Kill.” She’s set to appear April 13 at the TCM Film Festival to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ classic Western, whose boys’ club cast of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan she breaks up with that same brisk humor. Ahead of the event, Dickinson speaks with Variety about catching the acting bug after spying Frank Sinatra (later a lifelong friend) on the set of “The Jimmy Durante Show,” working with Brian De Palma, and other highlights from a lifetime of memories.

announced on Sunday. “While undergoing treatment for cancer discovered in June 2020, Sakamoto continued to create works in his home studio whenever his heath would allow,” the statement read.

Vertigo is underway at Paramount, with Robert Downey Jr. in talks to take on the lead role.According to Deadline, the actor is producing the remake and “eyeing” the lead role made famous by James Stewart in the original 1958 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is said to be on board to write the script, who recently signed up to write a new Star Wars film.Based on the French novel D’entre les morts, Vertigo follows former police detective John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson (Stewart) who is forced to retire after an incident in the line of duty which caused him to develop a fear of heights.The film received mixed reviews upon release, but has since become one of Hitchcock’s most beloved works.

On social media, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie just announced that Rolf Saxon, the actor who played unlucky CIA agent William Donloe in Brian De Palma’s 1996 masterpiece “Mission: Impossible” will be returning for the eighth film, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part Two” (due out in the summer of 2024).If, for some reason, you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise, in the first movie Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team, then comprised of Luther (Ving Rhames), Krieger (Jean Reno) and Claire (Emmanuele Béart), stage an audacious break-in at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. This involves sneaking into the “black vault,” an ultra-secure CIA database overseen by William Donloe, an analyst at the agency.

Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive unit responsible for Disney theme parks, cruise ships and shopping experiences, has reclaimed one of its own: Bruce Vaughn, who left the company in 2016, will return to Disney. Vaughn will be installed as chief creative officer, working alongside Barbara Bouza, president of Walt Disney Imagineering.

Edward R. Pressman, the prolific Hollywood indie producer behind Wall Street, Badlands and The Crow, among dozens of others, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 79.