The Film Stage

Remembering Robert Redford (with Blake Howard)
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In remembrance of the legendary Robert Redford, we’re resharing this conversation from 2024 on his extraordinary career and most overlooked performances. Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made...
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Exclusive: Japan Society Announces October Series Shiguéhiko Hasumi: Another History of the Movie in America and Japan
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In a late contender for series of the year, New York’s Japan Society has given programming carte blanche to Shiguéhiko Hasumi––a critic, theorist, and scholar who also served as mentor to Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The result is Shiguéhiko Hasumi: Another History...
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A Trio of Sarajevo Film Festival Highlights: Sorella di Clausura, Phantoms of July, and White Snail
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Grown from the seed of wartime screenings held by Mirsad Purivatra and Izeta Građević in the early ’90s, no festival in the world wears its history on its sleeve quite like Sarajevo. The city was still under siege when citizens...
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TIFF Review: Paul Greengrass’ The Lost Bus is a Disaster Movie Master Class
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In The Lost Bus, the latest propulsive and sweat-inducing disaster thriller from Paul Greengrass, a few electric sparks from a major power line hit dry weeds and spread into an uncontainable wildfire that mercilessly engulfs Paradise, California. The town’s name boasts...
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TIFF Review: Cillian Murphy Keeps School Drama Steve on the Tracks
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It’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Steve (Cillian Murphy). As the headmaster at Stanton Wood, a boarding school for troubled young men, he shows up to work and is greeted by bickering students, physical altercations, and...
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TIFF Review: Amoeba is a Surprising Singaporean Hangout Film
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Coming-of-age tales are a genre with little recent innovation. Yet Singaporean-American filmmaker Siyou Tan finds remarkable specificity and novelty in her Singapore-set “girl-gang” story. Singapore is not an oft-portrayed location or culture in movies that reach North American screens; Amoeba‘s...
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The Criterion Collection’s December Lineup Includes His Girl Friday and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure on 4K
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And like that, Criterion’s 2025 is in the books. A sterling year closes out with Tim Burton’s inauguration into their hallowed halls (and maybe through the most logical choice) with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure arriving on 4K. Honors are likewise put...
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Exclusive: KimStim Acquires Acclaimed Ukrainian Documentary Timestamp, Release Trailer & Poster
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We’re pleased to exclusively announce that KimStim has acquired all North American rights to Timestamp, the highly acclaimed documentary feature from Ukrainian filmmaker Kateryna Gornostai, director of the Berlinale Crystal Bear–winning Stop-Zemlia (2021).  The deal was negotiated between KimStim’s Co-President...
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TIFF Review: Barrio Triste is One of the Year’s Great Debuts
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At barely two years old, Harmony Korine’s “post-cinema” company EDGLRD is already branching out. After directing AGGRO DR1FT and Baby Invasion, Korine takes on a producer role for Barrio Triste, the feature debut of Colombian-American artist Stillz. It’s a good...
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TIFF Review: Easy’s Waltz Finds Nic Pizzolatto Offering an Odd, Creaky New Hollywood Counterfeit
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My friend (and Film Stage Managing Editor) Nick Newman likes the term “counterfeit money” to describe certain movies. Be it The Batman or Ben Affleck’s oeuvre, it’s an apt descriptor for a number of titles play-acting as real-deal adult filmmaking...
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