by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Yes, we’ve all heard smartphones called the “black box” of our lives, but Mexican director Manolo Caro has adapted an award-winning Italian film that really speaks to the mobile handheld-driven times we live in.  Caro's new film PERFECTOS DESCONOCIDOS, or PERFECT STRANGERS to be released Jan. 11 from Pantelion Films, is literally powered by involuntary phone reveals. It’s full of “textual tension,&quo...

  Lionsgate has obtained the rights to Monster Hunt 2 in the US and the UK. Monster Hunt 2 is the sequel to the immensely successful 2015 Chinese blockbuster Monster Hunt. It was China's highest-grossing film ever, earning $382 million at the box office. While its reception to english-speaking audiences was fairly subdued, the sequel is still highly anticipated, featuring a returning cast (Bailhe Bai and Boran Jing) along with a new face Tony Leung Chiu-Wa...

Movie memories, by Siraj Syed—Fahrenheit 9/11(2004): Burning topics Fahrenheit 9/11 was released on DVD and VHS videotape on October 5, 2004, which is when I must have acquired my copy. Within a few days, the film broke records for the highest-selling documentary ever. About two million copies were sold/rented on the first day. A companion book too was released, The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader, containing the complete screenplay, maker Michael Moore's sources, audience e-mails ...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Oh, to ruin Award Season… but isn’t that what we’re on earth for? To have our dreams shattered but then our lives uplifted, if only in the movies? Enter LA LA LAND, a singing, dancing act of pure wish fulfillment starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Wait, a musical? Don’t be fooled. This is classic cinema updated with today’s angst. Stone says “the idea of this really modern story of two artists and ...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Woody Allen’s newest film Café Society just opened July 15, and it fits into a cinematic history of stories about Hollywood that audiences love. But Woody Allen himself has been a lightning rod for so long, the electricity generated off the attendant controversies could power a small town. That said, we’re talking about a movie, folks, not the personal life of the director. With that caveat, Café Soc...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent If in the fifty-odd years since British spymaster John le Carré began plying his trade as a novelist, you have somehow missed any of the screen versions of his works, know this: there are favorites. Everybody has one: from 1965’s Richard Burton classic The Spy Who Came in From The Cold to 2005’s The Constant Gardener (Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes) to 2011’s Gary Oldman-starrer Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. John ...

An Australia-United States co-production, Gods of Egypt was shot in Australia, predominantly on green screens, at Fox Studios, Sydney. Most ‘Egyptian’ Gods are played by Caucasian actors and the boundaries between earth, the sky, heaven, hell, man, god, ferocious bird, plasto-metallic creatures, life and death, are all blurred. CGI, forced perspective, shooting with two cameras side-by-side, motion control, are the flavours of the day. Authenticity is conspicuous by its absence. R...

This isn't your average road trip buddy movie. In the wake the of Iraq War, The Lucky Ones tell a story from a fictional perspective about three injured soliders that return home after their tour from Iraq. Cheever (Tim Robbins) finds himself in a compromising situation when there is an unexpected blackout at the airport. All of the flights are cancelled. He runs into TK (Michael Pena) who is looking to go to Las Vegas to meet with a medical pofessional for an embarrassing injury that he...