In her IndieWire review of the film, Leila Latif wrote that: “without Brendan Fraser’s innate charm and ability to project gentle sadness through the slightest flicker of his huge blue eyes, ‘The Whale’ wouldn’t have that much else going for it. Faultless performances from Morton and Chau illuminate complicated relationships with Charlie, a man at once lovable, frustrating, and dishonest.” She continued: “For Fraser, ‘The Whale’ is a confident leap forward into the movie-star status that he rightfully deserves....

“I had never met Mr. Gandolfini,” Patrick said. “I am out front on a bench smoking a cigarette with Jimmy after we’d just done this read through. And we’re trying to get to know each other a little bit because we’re supposed to be high school buddies. As the conversation was winding up, I said to him, ‘You know the scene where you come to get your money, you better bring your fucking A-game....

“Every head in the room swiveled toward that,” Wright said during an interview from a picnic table at the Telluride Film Festival, where he was promoting his role in Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch,” which screened earlier in the weekend. “And I was spraying that whole room, so if I had it that particular day, everybody would’ve had it. We shut down the next day.” Production on “The Batman” proved to be a constant rollercoaster for everyone involved, as the temporary delay last March turned into a six-month halt; three days after it resumed in September, an actor tested positive....

While Lucille will always be Walter’s most iconic character — not only due to her amazing comic timing and throaty delivery — there was so much more to her impressive six-decade career. She was terrifying in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, the 1971 thriller “Play Misty for Me.” A genre precursor to “Fatal Attraction,” Walter impressed in her first major film role as a mentally unstable fan obsessed with Eastwood’s radio DJ....

In an interview with Variety this week, Boyega said studios must get publicly involved in the fight against toxic fandom, explaining, “When one of your actors, especially an actor that’s so prominent in the story, is announced as part of your franchise and then it has a big racial backlash and receives abuse online and that starts to form a shadow on what is supposed to be an amazing gift, it is important for the studios to definitely lend their voice, lend their support to that and to have a sense of solidarity not just in the public eye, but on the ground on set....

Following the debate over colorism in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights,” John Leguizamo spoke about his experience in the film industry. “There’s colorism within Latin culture that we have to fix, but there’s colorism in Hollywood too,” Leguizamo said during Nick Barili’s new series “Seen” in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as reported by Deadline. Leguizamo continued, “All the Latinos who’ve made it so far, a lot of them were light-skinned....

In his first film role, Scott Cooper’s “Hostiles,” the actor portrayed a 19th-century corporal stationed in New Mexico. In the HBO supernatural horror TV series “Lovecraft Country,” he was a World War II veteran returning home to the monsters of white supremacy. He even portrayed the son of a PTSD-afflicted, Trump-voting veteran in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” The military is not only in Majors’ name, it’s in his DNA: His father was in the Air Force....

“Michelle [Rodriguez] was like, ‘Dude, we’ve never had a scene together. We’re always secondary with the guys. We don’t interact. We have a sisterhood. We need to explore this,’” Brewster said, adding that Rodriguez and “F9” director Justin Lin then became “very conscious” of shining a spotlight on Letty and Mia’s relationship. “Michelle’s always been very outspoken about not doing anything that isn’t true to character, and that means not placating the guys, that means not playing second fiddle to the guys,” Brewster said....

Meantime, Netflix viewers continue to confound their overlords by preferring to watch the streamers’ less high-profile original films rather than the more expensive star-branded ones. “Look Both Ways” with “Riverdale” star Lili Reinhart as a college senior thinking through alternatives for her future knocked off Jamie Foxx’s “Day Shift” (now #3). “Jurassic” will come to Peacock on September 2, with both the release version and one with extended scenes. The studio released the latter to PVOD this week....

Of course, the DCEU fandom isn’t all bad, and the story of how we got here isn’t quite that simple. Unless you’ve been lucky enough to spend the last four years living in a tiny Scandinavian fishing village so remote that it takes Bruce Wayne six days to get there (exactly how big does Zack Snyder think Iceland is?), you probably know the gist of it by now: Personal tragedy implored Snyder to step away from his epic “Justice League” in the months leading up to its late 2017 release, the two-hour version that Joss Whedon then Frankensteined together was cooly received by the masses, and the most impassioned members of the DCEU fandom — who deified Snyder as the only director capable of treating Batman with the Wagnerian seriousness that a billionaire who drives a rocket-powered car demands — began campaigning for Warner Bros....

Prop Store CEO Stephen Lane said in a statement announcing the auction, “Following the massive success in our inaugural Los Angeles Entertainment Memorabilia live auction, Prop Store is back with its seventh UK auction, a fantastic collection of over 900 artifacts for movie fans to get excited about. The two-day event will take place via live stream on the first and second of December 2020, with plenty of digital opportunities to get up close and personal with the incredible content on offer this year....

Kendall’s war room is actually a 6,711-square-foot apartment titled Pavilion A that’s located in New York City’s Woolworth Building. Per Robb Report: “The property was built back in 1910, but was recently treated to a meticulous restoration. Located on the 29th floor, it comprises five bedrooms, four baths, and two powder rooms, making it perfect for a family of media moguls.” “Succession” is currently airing its third season on HBO and has been renewed for a fourth....

Competition was stiff, given this year’s particularly wide field of Oscar contenders. Voters will have to choose between arthouse dramas from elite directors (Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Todd Field’s “TÁR”), critically acclaimed blockbusters (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), and bold international films (“RRR,” “Decision to Leave”). The awards ended up being relatively evenly split between arthouse films and those with more popular sensibilities. “TÁR” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” shared the award for Best Film in a tie, and they both notched signature wins elsewhere in the competition....

More than a decade later, Guatemala is finally on the international cinema map thanks to “La Llorona,” Bustamante’s allegorical horror tale now on the shortlist for the Best International Feature Oscar. The film draws on the genocidal reign of José Efraín Ríos Montt, who died in 2018 but whose crimes still haunt the land, to weave a spooky tale of class disparity and the systematic slaughtering of indigenous people that devastated Guatemala in the second half of the 20th century....

Lea Michele, whose “Glee” character Rachel dreamed of playing Fanny Brice on Broadway in the role originated by Barbra Streisand, will officially star in the dramedy musical starting August 1. Michele takes over for Beanie Feldstein, last seen on Broadway in the Tony-winning “Hello, Dolly!” Michele will take over the role of Fanny Brice on September 6. Until then, Feldstein’s understudy Julie Benko will perform from August 2 through September 4 and every Thursday beginning on September 8....

Obviously, the lack of ongoing films is a key factor, but in 2019 there were no new films that weekend. Aided by more theaters being open and a handful of new releases, this weekend’s numbers are about double last weekend. However, they suggest that a substantial part of the moviegoing public is, so far, not going. Disney/Fox Long-delayed “X-Men” offshoot “The New Mutants” is #1 with $7 million estimated. The 20th Century Fox film saw its release delayed until long after the Disney merger; this is actually its fifth scheduled release date, and only one of those change stemmed from COVID-19....

“Right before I was set to meet with the lead actress [Kristine Froseth] and [writer-director] Lena Dunham, a decision was made to no longer have the character be autistic,” Gravino wrote in her Twitter thread. “What also surprised me about the change of course was that I was told Lena Dunham had done research on me and was excited to meet me.” Gravino, who was diagnosed with autism at age 11, is on staff as a relationship coach for students with autism at Rutgers University’s Center for Adult Autism Services....

The six films included in the bundle will be documentary contender “Gunda” directed by Victor Kossakovsky and executive produced by Joaquin Phoenix; Gianfranco Rosi’s “Notturno,” which is Italy’s submission for the Best International Feature Academy Award; “The Painter and the Thief,” directed by Benjamin Ree and shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar; Andrei Konchalovsky’s Best International Feature submission from Russia, “Dear Comrades!; “Night of the Kings,” Philippe Lacôte’s Ivory Coast Oscar Submission; and Jasmila Žbanić’s “Quo Vadis, Aida?...

For those who haven’t read King’s chilling novel, here’s the official synopsis from the horror author’s website: “Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland strays from the path while she and her recently divorced mother and brother take a hike along a branch of the Appalachian Trail. Lost for days, wandering farther and farther astray, Trisha has only her portable radio for comfort. A huge fan of Tom Gordon, a Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, she listens to baseball games and fantasizes that her hero will save her....

In a brief but memorable series of exchanges with the animals during their chatty moonlight stroll, Mank (Gary Oldman) and Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), are definitely upstaged by the scene-stealing Capuchin monkeys, elephants, and giraffes. “David wanted specific performances from all the animals,” said ILM VFX supervisor Pablo Helman (“The Irishman”). “He wanted the [four] monkeys to be agitated, the giraffes to spring in a certain way, and the elephants to have a response....