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“The Matrix” franchise will continue with a fourth film that’s currently in development, with Lana Wachowski set to write and direct, and Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprising their roles as Neo and Trinity, respectively. The project has been kept mostly under wraps, as plot details are currently unknown. In addition to Reeves and Moss, actors already confirmed to be joining the cast include Jada Pinkett Smith (Niobe), as well as newcomers Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Toby Onwumere, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who is rumored to be playing young Morpheus. Lambert Wilson might soon be added to the list, according to a recent report by French outlet Allocine (via The Playlist), that says Wilson, who played The Merovingian...

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and Amazon Prime Video’s “Fleabag” may be dead and gone, but they are most certainly not forgotten — at least as far as the American Cinema Editors are concerned. The organization announced the Eddie Award winners for TV on Friday night, at a ceremony held at the International Ballroom in the Beverly Hilton, hosted by star of “The Good Place” D’Arcy Carden. Tim Porter’s work on the epic 82-minute “Game of Thrones” episode “The Long Night” earned him the prize for Best Edited Drama Series For Non-Commercial Television, unsurprising given Porter’s win for the work at the Emmy Awards in September. The same goes for Gary Dollner for his work on the Season 2 premiere of “Fleabag.” The editor’s work is just the...

While no official statement from the series and its representatives has emerged so far, “The Simpsons” voice actor Hank Azaria has revealed in a new interview with /Film that he will no longer voice Apu, the Indian immigrant proprietor of the Kwik-E-Mart on the beloved animated show. In the interview, which took place during the ongoing TCA tour in Southern California, Azaria said, “I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s some way to transition it or something…What they’re going to do with the character is their call,” referring to the series’ creative team that includes executive producers Matt Groening and James L. Brooks. “It’s up to them and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice...

Tyler Perry is one of popular culture’s biggest contradictions: one of the most prominent African American storytellers in history, he’s a bonafide showman and a sloppy filmmaker, often at the same time. Perry’s prolific output often centers on inane dialogue, mismatched performances, and half-hearted scenarios that feel like they barely made it past the first draft. But whether he’s channeling his now-retired quasi-drag queen Madea or turning up the melodrama, Perry’s workmanlike approach always delivers on his own slapdash terms. “A Fall From Grace,” Perry’s first feature for Netflix (and his first since apparently killing off Madea last year), encapsulates the essence of the Perry Touch. A trashy Hitchcockian riff designed to make...

This season’s editing race features five Best Picture Oscar contenders with unconventional characters and demanding narratives: “The Irishman,” “Parasite,” “Joker,” “Ford v Ferrari,” and “Jojo Rabbit.” Martin Scorsese’s go-to editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, aims for her fourth Oscar win with the gangster epic, “The Irishman.” It’s the director’s summary statement about “loyalty, love, trust, and ultimately betrayal.” Robert De Niro’s elderly mob hitman, Frank Sheeran, looks back on his violent life and divided loyalties between cunning Philly crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) and hot-headed Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). The narrative contains a dense, zigzagging structure, complicated by Industrial Light & Magic’s...

WarnerMedia executives unveiled new details about HBO Max on Wednesday at the TCA 2020 Winter Press Tour, clarifying that all legacy and current HBO content will be available on the service alongside a dizzying array of television shows and films from the AT&T-owned company’s myriad brands. WarnerMedia executives previously said HBO’s full library would be available on HBO Max during the streaming service’s initial reveal last October, but questions of current show access have dogged the service — which will co-exist alongside the similar-sounding HBO, HBO Now, and HBO Go — since then. HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Riley, Head of Original Content Sarah Aubrey, and Executive Vice President of Content Acquisitions Michael Quigley...

“The Outsider” is as much a true crime story as it is the kind of chilling horror tale that Stephen King has mastered. The HBO series, adapted from the author’s 2018 novel, might not fully lean into the horror that defined recent King adaptions, such as “It,” — but that was part of the appeal for series star and executive producer Jason Bateman, who also directed its first two episodes. “I’m not a huge horror fan or into scare jumps, gore, or slashers (but) I really love dread, thrillers, tension and all that stuff,” Bateman said during a “The Outsider” panel at the Television Critics Association 2020 Winter Press Tour. “I was really excited that this story lived in more of a Stephen King ‘The Shining’ world, as opposed to some of his...

In order for a movie to wind up in the Best Picture race, everything has to go right. Debuting in Cannes to rave reviews was the ninth film from auteur Quentin Tarantino. The 1969-set Los Angeles dramedy “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (July 26, Sony) boasts a starry ensemble led by Oscar-friendly Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. The $90-million epic pulled global audiences ($372.4 million worldwide). This movie, like show-business Oscar-winners “All About Eve,” “The Artist” and “Birdman,” also plays well inside Hollywood. The acting branch responded enthusiastically to the movie’s superb performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, who went for supporting, and won the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards in...

Another visionary director has made the jump to a streaming service partnership. Amazon Studios announced on Tuesday that it has signed an overall deal with “12 Years a Slave” and “Widows” director Steve McQueen. Speaking to the Television Critics Association biannual press tour in Pasadena, California, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke explained that the news also comes with the announcement of a new TV series that is currently being developed. “We’ve spent the last year conspiring on not only an overall deal, but a new global series. We’re jumping into writing on Steve’s idea ‘Last Days.’ This is an incredibly timely big-swing show we think will be one of our best hits,” Salke said. McQueen is no stranger to the Amazon universe...

Academy Award-winning director Spike Lee has been named jury president for the 73rd annual Cannes Film Festival, taking place May 12-23, 2020. The announcement was made by the festival on Tuesday morning in Paris. This makes Spike Lee not only the first African-American to serve as jury president for the storied festival, but also the first person from the African diaspora, as Lee championed in his statement out of the festival. “To me the Cannes Film Festival (besides being the most important film festival in the world — no disrespect to anybody) has had a great impact on my film career. You could easily say Cannes changed the trajectory of who I became in world cinema,” he said. “It started way back in 1986 — my first feature film...

“The New Pope,” like its jaunty predecessor, is a story built on gospels. Paolo Sorrentino’s inside look at the leadership of a fictionalized Catholic Church spends a lot of time listening to pontiffs pontificate, his camera slowly circling the central speaker or elevating him from a wide distance as he preaches from atop his papal pulpit. This season, it’s often the eponymous new pope, Sir John Brannox (played with nuanced delight by John Malkovich), who bounces between bloviating and imparting genuine wisdom. But unlike plenty of real-life homilies, “The New Pope” knows which of its moments are honestly enlightening and which are empty, irrelevant gestures. Sorrentino, and his co-writers Umberto Contrarello and Stefano Bises...

Death isn’t dark enough for the haunted characters that populate the unwieldy “Grudge” franchise. Instead, it’s what happens after that’s worse, when the vengeful (and always very moist) spirits appear and attempt to exact cosmic-level revenge on whoever happens to be around. The fourth American film based on Takashi Shimizu’s wildly popular J-horror films functions as both a reboot of the series and a strange sequel to the first Americanized remake of the franchise. The new entry has all the hallmarks of the first round of remakes, but the pitiful retread only succeeds at proving that the potential for this franchise died long ago. Like its predecessors, director Nicolas Pesce’s “The Grudge” utilizes cheap tricks both on a narrative...

The Critics Choice Awards always fall near the Oscar nominations; this year, they were 12 hours before. Thus, this starry awards show held inside a chilly hanger at the Santa Monica Airport serves to adds luster to those who move into the final phase of Oscar season. Academy members start voting January 30, with final ballots due February 4, five days before the earliest-ever Oscar show February 9. Since the Critics Choice Association for film and television is the largest critics’ organization in North America (400 television, radio, and online critics), their awards are a more accurate predictor of Academy Award nominations than other critics’ groups. Wins often match up, too, except when the CCAs go for ties. There were several...