Film

Film

Bay Area film lovers are in for a treat with this year's Mill Valley Film Festival, one of the most underrated yearly local events. Now in its 48th year, the 11-day festival running Oct. 2-12 brings huge stars into town for early screenings of Hollywood blockbusters, prestigious award bait and international films you likely won't see anywhere else. It's arguably the week where you're most likely to spot an A-list actor in town.

Describe your favorite fragrance: I HAVE FOUR. SEA AIR NIGHT BLOOMING JASMINE, FRESH CUT GRASS, AND MY WIFE, MICHELE 3. Choose an architect to design your dream house: a) Frank Lloyd Wright b) I. M. Pei c) Walter Gropius 4. Circle your preferred fruits: Banana Apple Pomegranate Pear Cherry d) Frank Gehry Pineapple Blueberry Grape e) Louis Sullivan Other: JAMES OTHER No Plum Nectarine CONTEST

The titles that usually break out of TIFF's Midnight Madness program are often characterized by audacious, crowd-pleasing spectacle (consider the uproarious acclaim for " The Furious"). I've always been drawn to the more unconventional midnighters; those stories that may not boast the action choreography and visceral thrills of their louder siblings, but remain intriguingly disquieting. This dispatch covers two Midnighters here that fit that bill, plus another lo-fi cut featuring a brat-ty pop star that feels right at home with these strange delights.

It's only fitting that filmmaker Sierra Falconer's feature debut, "Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)," does a lot with a little. Originally conceived of as her senior thesis film for her graduate program at UCLA, Falconer's spectacular gem eventually took her all the way to Sundance, where it debuted in competition at the 2025 edition of the fest. It's the sort of discovery film fans are eager to find and don't always get a chance to: a charming, lived-in first film that shows off a filmmaker's talent and soul, heart, and skill.

There was a time when fan fiction meant furtive scribbles uploaded to shadowy corners of the internet, in which Mr Darcy was recast as a moody vampire flatmate, Captain Kirk discovered his inner romantic, or Gandalf finally got around to opening an artisanal shop in the Shire. It was an underground hobby that could never trouble Tinseltown's accountants.

The Groomsmen: Second Chances stars Mean Girls actor Jonathan Bennett as former pro basketball player turned coach Danny, while his business manager and eventual husband Zack is played by This Biter Earth and A Night Like This actor, Alexander Lincoln. The bulk of the film focuses on Danny's attempts to suppress his feelings for his friend, while Zack plans his wedding to his partner Nolan (Adam Rhys-Charles). Yet, and this is a pretty hefty spoiler alert, on the day of the wedding, Zack confesses that Danny's feelings are reciprocated.

"I'm very drawn to Blender's open-source ethos: the sharing of tools, knowledge, and creative work so anyone can use, modify, and contribute. We quickly realised the most exciting thing about this project was that it wasn't just going to be a music video - it's something people can actually download, play with, and make their own," says Will. "You can link it to your face and sing along, change the character, explore how the nodes fit together, remix it, adapt it, and share it yourself...

There are few places on Earth that feel more creatively supportive than the Ouray Film Festival, a gorgeous mountain setting where creators come together to support each other's visions. The team behind the annual June event are launching their own filmmaker lab: The Ouray Filmmaker Sabbatical. It's designed to give creators space from the hustle and bustle of the industry in places like New York and Los Angeles, a safety net that's "designed to give filmmakers pace to recharge and rethink."

According to Nelson, Clooney joked at the time that all of their SAG cards should've been revoked "because there was so much overacting from the three of us," but it was Turturro's advice when shooting began to always give the Coens more than they asked for. Ultimately, to Nelson, the broadness of their performances juxtaposes with "passages of real sadness and poignancy" to deepen the comedy.

It was a project born out of pandemic necessity, 'when there were no more live performances and the company was asking big questions,' Cooper said. Rather than answers, the company ventured into Kingian territory as Cooper follows the dancers into the Arizona desert and the SFMOMA galleries. At a time when performers couldn't inhabit the same space as audiences, he captured the dancers in sumptuously cinematic settings interlaced with interviews offering insights into their inner lives.

Warning: If you haven't seen this documentary, this post is FULL of spoilers. If you've seen Unknown Number: The High School Catfish on Netflix, then you know exactly why people can't stop talking about it. Back in 2021, a high school girl and her boyfriend started getting disturbing, anonymous texts that wouldn't stop.

Meet the Lynxleys! Andy Samberg voices Pawbert Lynxley, the easy-going runt of the powerful Lynxley family. David Strathairn is Milton Lynxley, a distinguished business-mammal and the patriarch of one of Zootopia's oldest and most prestigious families. Macauley Culkin voices Cattrick Lynxley, the ambitious oldest son of the Lynxley family. Brenda Song plays Kitty Lynxley, the sharp-tongued daughter of the Lynxley family.

She then introduces herself as "the Value Affleck" with "twice the personality for half the price." Like a true family, Jen starts to roast her Cousin Ben for being "so dated" and a "weathered 53" before the camera pans to Ben in the drive-thru.

The 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory reamins one of the most iconic children's movies of all time, filled with memorable scenes and setpieces that still look great on screen even all these decades later. Starting today, Lego Insiders can recreate a blocky version of the titular Chocolate Factory's chocolate rivers and gumdrop trees with the new Lego Ideas: Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory Set.

With The Batman: Part II set to release in 2027, DC fans have been watching closely for any clues to tide them over during the long wait. Most recently, eagle-eyed batfans spotted an interesting easter egg on the new Clayface film set, which seemed to suggest Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight could be swooping into the DCU. The Batman emblem is undoubtedly one of the most iconic superhero logos, and with so many iterations, each design represents a unique version of the Caped Crusader.

When electronic-ambient-new age pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre was working on 1976's Oxygene, in his makeshift home studio, he often had to tape down two preset buttons of his Korg drum machine to achieve the effect he wanted. Thanks to the breakout success of that record and its winning blend of bright keyboard melodies and warped analog synths, Jarre didn't have to resort to such ad-hoc methods for long.

Some of the most urgent films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival aren't here to soothe. Together, Orwell: 2+2=5, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, and Frankenstein play like sizzle reels of caution, and at their best, they're award-worthy symbols of alarm. These films, the first two of which are documentaries, don't just entertain-they confront fractured humanity, closeness and distance under Israel's siege of Gaza, and a creation we've set loose, growing beyond our control.

Chloe Zhao's adaptation of Hamnet has won this year's people's choice award at the Toronto film festival. The acclaimed drama, based on Maggie O'Farrell's award-winning novel, stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal and tells a fictionalised account of William Shakespeare and wife Agnes as they grieve for their young son. The award has come to suggest future Oscar success with every recipient from 2011 to 2023 scoring either a best picture nomination or a win.

Given the relatively shallow offerings from the major studios this year (sorry "Elio" fans), it seems very possible that this year's winner could also come from the fest circuit-either that or the phenomenon that is " KPop Demon Hunters ". It honestly could be one of the three international productions in this dispatch, all with their own notable qualities, although I would argue one works notably better than the others.

'When we sleep, our motor muscles are prevented from moving - a physiological state called atonia,' Anderson told the Daily Mail. 'It protects us from getting up and acting out our dreams and keeps us safely tucked up in bed. 'But if you start to wake up before your body moves out of atonia, you may experience an in-limbo state, half awake (yet also half dreaming) and unable to move. 'Although sleep paralysis only lasts a few seconds, the terrifying experience feels so real that you feel doomed.'

And according to director Genki Kawamura, one of the reasons that the movie feels so fresh could be because of how he approached it. "I wasn't necessarily thinking about a film adaptation of a video game," he tells The Verge. "I was thinking about how to create a new cinematic experience that blurs the lines between video game and cinema."

After a messy press tour for the It Ends With Us adaptation and damage to her reputation and brands, Blake Lively filed a complaint against Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, his crisis PR team The Agency Group, Melissa Nathan, and others for sexual harassment, retaliation, and more. On December 21, the New York Times detailed the claims in the document that alleged Baldoni hired the crisis PR company to "bury" Lively after she complained about Baldoni's behavior on set to the studio, threatening his "feminist" reputation.

Samwise Gamgee can't carry the One Ring, but he can carry the vote. Sean Astin was elected president of SAG-AFTRA, succeeded Fran Drescher in the role. His mother, Patty Duke, was also SAG-AFTRA president 37 years before Astin's tenure. "Now is a time for optimism and creativity. I am thrilled that the members have allowed me to lead our storied organization out of this challenging moment and into a future defined by confidence, progress and fierce advocacy," Astin said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. "I'm excited to get to work."

The Compatriots, out September 16 on VOD, is an affable comedy about a serious subject. Closeted high school student Javi (Rafael Silva) is feeling good after pitching a no-hitter, but when he kisses his teammate, Hunter (Denis Shepherd), at the afterparty, things get awkward between these best friends. Five years later, the guys reconnect when Javi has another uncomfortable issue-ICE has raided his workplace and Javi is hiding because he is undocumented.

When "The Brutalist" stormed the festival circuit around this time last year, it seemed like something of a unicorn - as well as an almost impossible sell. Twelve months, 10 Oscar nominations, and one rapturous quasi-musical later, it feels like a new kind of recipe for success. How do you follow an epic historical drama about a traumatized European who sails to America and builds their own church? You make another one, of course.