For anyone who needs real confirmation, direck Ivan has given it! We are getting a 3rd Gameboys set in New York City!

IFC Films published the official North American poster for Corsage (2022). The movie will premiere in cinemas there on December 23rd, 2022.

Purple Rain is starting in half an hour on IFC (May 21, 4:30 AM EST) in case anybody's interested!

Still need to get this to the scanner, but here's some new Prince art to celebrate!

Biosphere - Teaser Trailer Feat. Mark Duplass & Sterling K. Brown | HD | IFC Films

Dir: Mel Eslyn

SLEEPWALK WITH ME- 2012 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Indie comed/drama about a standup comic struggling to make it and going through a rough patch with his girl. Abruptly, he starts sleepwalking every night.

Based on a true story.

Some amusing stuff. Not laugh out loud funny for me but alright, and a bit uplifting when he starts to do well. A few good cameo appearances.

Directed by Mike Birbiglia.

During the Drama Actress #THRRoundtable, Anna Sawai opened up about her initial fear that her character would be overly sexualized on #ShogunFX | Watch the full #OffScript episode this Friday 05/31 at 10pm PT/1am ET on IFC and AMCPlus

With BlackBerry, Matt Johnson continues to show no other director has a better understanding of our modern, media-molded minds

For those unfamiliar, Matt Johnson is a 37-year-old Canadian indie filmmaker, whose new film BlackBerry, which he co-wrote, directed, and co-stars in, was released this past week. BlackBerry charts the rise and fall of the Canadian creators and company behind the once ubiquitous “BlackBerry” smart phone, a device that’s now a relic to the pre-iphone aughts. The film chronicles the triumphs and tribulations of the phone’s creators, underdog nerds Mike Lazaridis and Dough Fregin, and cutthroat businessman and Blackberry co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who both launched the phone to its successes and helped destroy all they created. Johnson’s previous features are The Dirties, a found footage dark comedy/drama about the lives of two film obsessed high schoolers leading up to a school shooting, and Operation Avalanche, a period thriller about low level CIA agents faking the moon landing – a film in which said agents con their way into NASA, which Johnson and his crew actually did in real life when making the low budget indie film. However, Johnson’s most iconic work, and most beloved by many, is his mockumentary comedy series, which started as a web series and was later adapted to TV, Nirvanna the Band the Show. The series details the misadventures and schemes of a fictionalized version of Johnson and his friend, musician Jay McCarrol, as they try to get their band – Nirvanna the Band – a show at the Toronto restaurant and music venue “The Rivoli.” You might know this series from the now famous "Update Day" clip in which the duo sing along to the Wii shop music. In 2021, Johnson and McCarrol even made a three-episode animated children’s spin off of Nirvanna the Band, titled Matt and Bird Break Loose. A unifying aspect of much of Johnson's work is his narrative documentary style of filmmaking, often employing real people in Sacha Baron Cohen-style moments.

Something about me: I'm kind of a Matt Johnson obsessive. Any time I meet someone from Canada under the age of 40, I ask them if they've heard of Matt Johnson or Nirvanna the Band the Show. I have multiple back-up hard drives with the complete web series and TV seasons of Nirvanna the Band because it's impossible to get/find now in the US. Anytime I'm in a large media store that sells 2nd hand movies (like Amoeba Records), I religiously spend time searching to see if, by some small chance, they have one of the physical copies of The Dirties (the ones with the variant covers that look like Criterion Collection covers) - it's kinda my physical media holy grail. My DVD of Operation Avalanche is one of my most prized possessions. Hell, I’ve even tried my hand at replicating Johnson’s style numerous times, a short film I made while at film school abroad in France being the main example. So, suffice to say: I was very excited for Blackberry.

With BlackBerry Johnson is making significant stylistic and scale leaps from his previous works, “making it to the big leagues” as someone more confident than me with sports metaphors might say. It’s a bigger movie than he’s made before, getting a limited national release here in the US, by a major indie distributor (IFC), starring two sizeable, well-known actors (It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia’s Glenn Howerton and comedy mainstay Jay Baruchel). All this far from the rag-tag, small scale, underground nature of his previous works, where the cast was the filmmakers and the biggest names involved were Vice (and its since defunct TV network) and Kevin Smith whose company distributed The Dirties. Stylistically, BlackBerry makes the jump from Johnson’s previous found footage/mockumentary movie (both terms sounding far more derisive to the idiosyncratic style of Johnson’s films than I’d like) to a fully “traditional” narrative feature. With both The Dirties and Operation Avalanche, as well as NTBTS, the characters are involved in the actual act of filmmaking, for one reason or another, and aware of the camera filming them, the cameramen being acknowledged entities. The footage you’re watching is filmed, edited, and staring the characters on screen. But, with BlackBerry, besides a fun visual gag from Glenn Howerton at the beginning of the film, the cameras exist as they would in any normal movie – invisible watchers of the events.

What makes BlackBerry and Johnson’s filmmaking so great though is that he doesn’t just abandon all semblance of his style and aesthetic, becoming some bland gun for hire, like so many indie directors plucked from festival success to helm the next cinematic toy line for Marvel. Instead, he finds ways to work his style into this more traditional film in compelling ways. While the camera is no longer literally in the story, it still hovers around the characters, with longtime Johnson DP Jared Raab often shooting through the obstruction of windows, from far away, and with the back of heads in the foreground. The camera zooms and focuses in and out of different characters and things in the moment, cinema verité style, Johnson describing in a Q&A for the film having been influenced by documentaries like Pennebaker and Hegedus’ The War Room. The looming, documentary-like camera works perfectly for this constantly manic story of slap dash, neurotic tech wizzes and on edge CEO sociopaths, the camera matching the characters nature. For this story of greed, corporate malignancy, and the loss of ideals, the camera’s living style also feels like what you’re watching is covert, hacked CCTV footage. It makes the viewer feel like they’re seeing what actually happened: secret footage from inside the office, fly on the wall stuff, intimate to these people and these conflicts.

True to the overarching motif in Johnson’s work of media’s permanent place in our cultural language and experience, Blackberry is filled visual references to other movies: from a non-diegetic montage of famous sci-fi technology over the opening credits, to scenes of the lovable band of “Research in Motion” nerds enjoying movie nights of Raiders of the Lost Ark and They Live, to movie posters lining the walls of the RIM offices and featured on Doug’s t-shirts. Johnson perfectly described how necessary referencing other media was to his film when he explained “Pop culture that we think of as just nerdy ephemera, I believe sincerely, winds up dictating what technologists create that will become the future.” Well timed needle drops help ground the work in its specific world of a nerds 1996, 2003, and 2007, and frequent Johnson collaborator (and aforementioned co-star of Nirvanna the Band) Jay McCarrol brings a pumping synth score, not too dissimilar to Trent Reznor’s work in The Social Network, but with a uniquely quirkier, lo-fi essence that fits perfectly with the indie feel of both the film itself and its subject matter.

Thankfully we’re not entirely deprived of Johnson’s charismatic, comedic screen presence in BlackBerry. While not the Orson Wells-style leading man both in front of and behind the camera he was in his previous works, he still features in Blackberry as the third of our main 3 characters, Doug Fregin, co-engineer/creator of the famous phone, who acts in a way as the film’s audience surrogate. Despite Doug being a “goof” as Balsillie describes him, he’s the heart of the main three characters, the moral center to which we compare Balsillie’s shrewd cunning, lies, and manipulations, and Lazaridis’s tragic moral downfall from tech idealist to bottom-line businessman. Doug is undoubtedly a character in the typical “Johnsonian mold” - a movie quoting, John Carpenter t-shirt and sweatband wearing, ninja turtle loving hyperactive who uses Star Wars references in business meetings. In fact, the character seems molded in the film more on Johnson than the real man, given that, as Johnson explained, he’s a “true cipher… has never done a taped interview,” leaving Johnson with room for interpretation.

However, while Johnson delivers a more lighthearted, comedy performance, as a director he pulls some impressive dramatic performances from Howerton and Baruchel. It’s true that the movie is, at its core, a dark comedy, so there’s some great comedy in the lead performances, Howerton delivering that trademark snark and unhinged rage his Always Sunny character has become known for and Baruchel with his awkward nerdiness. I have no doubt Howerton’s scene in which he, in a rage, screams “I’m from Waterloooooo! Where the vampires hang out!” - in a moment that must be seen to be believed - will become a quoted classic before long. But the characters aren’t just farce Social Network parodies, they have depth and drama to them, a credit to Johnson’s directing and Howerton and Baruchel’s acting. You feel Balsillie’s underlying insecurity and attraction to power that drives him. You hurt seeing Lazaridis slowly turning into what he once stood against and the tragedy of him reaching his ethical “point of no return” when he agrees to the BlackBerry touchscreen phone being manufactured overseas, in order to meet budget and deadline. We also get some delightful supporting performances from the likes of Saul Rubinek, Rich Sommer, Cary Elwes, and Michael Ironside as an imposing, rotund, bolo tie wearing, hard ass COO.

BlackBerry is a tragic tale of ambition and passion succumbing to ego and greed, and in so it’s not only a movie about the tech sector, but also about the struggle of making art. Lazaridis struggles, and ultimately fails, to maintain integrity while creating a technology he loves and believes in against a world run by people like Balsillie who only seek profit and status, quality be damned as long as it sells. Anyone who makes art, especially films, is up against the same problem. There will always be Mike Lazaridis and Matt Johnson’s, there will always be Jim Balsillie’s and David Zaslav’s, and there will always be a struggle between the two: art and commerce. The tragedy comes when the creator, like Lazaridis, loses their principles, and begins creating not for the love of it, but out of obligation and out of profit. The triumphs come when the creator finds a way to take what they love, what they’re good at, and what is meaningful to them, - their vision - and deliver it to the masses with the heart intact, as Johnson has done throughout his career, now with BlackBerry more than ever. It’s up to the creator to stand fast and endure to create their meaningful works, as oftentimes the sharks will get along either way, as we see in the end credits with Balsillie, who avoided any jail time for his stock fraud committed while co-CEO of BlackBerry.

While I don’t think they're for everybody, Matt Johnson's works capture the modern media deluged culture that we all exist in better than any other modern artist or filmmaker. His movies are always about movies, whether they narratively are or not, just as our lives have become subsumed by media consumption, regurgitation, and reinterpretation. We now live in a world where almost every movie and TV show is at our fingertips 24/7 - a religion, the upgrade to dreaming, the codex we classify our existence on - and his film-making style and characters reflect that. The characters, especially the characters Johnson portray, speak in a lingua franca of movies quotes. His camera is alive and involved in the action, often literally, just as our cameras and screens are every day. His editing blends the real world with the movie world, blurring the lines. His movies are not documentaries, but they’re certainly not just fiction, something in between, a dreamlike blend for our media-soaked minds. I’ve never been one good at the rigid definitions of “modernism” and “post modernism” in art, but I have to believe Johnson is the cutting edge of whatever “post-post-post…Modern” stage we’re at currently. The Dirties is about media’s role in the lives of a youth more connected but also alienated than ever before. Operation Avalanche takes the uniquely western art form of film and uses it to represent how governments often use media to manufacture their own fictions to control the public narrative. Nirvanna the Band the Show shows how media influences our everyday lives, friendships, personalities, and dreams. And now BlackBerry serves as a cautionary tale for the fate an artist can fall to if they let their work become a product instead of a passion and art. As we drift further into the oblivion of inevitable ecological, political, social collapse, media becoming the God of our reality, Matt Johnson is our guru, beaming our media-soaked psyche back on to the screen, creating innovative, funny, compelling stories of life through the lens of a movie-fed world.

IFC Films Acquires Global On ‘Dandelion’ With Nicole Riegel Directing, KiKi Layne Starring

EXCLUSIVE: IFC Films has picked up worldwide rights to writer-director Nicole Riegel’s sophomore feature Dandelion. Cameras roll this week on the romantic drama, which will star KiKi Layne. A theatrical release is planned for next year.

Layne, who will also executive produce, plays Dandelion, a struggling but determined Cincinnati singer-songwriter in a downward spiral. She reluctantly takes a last-ditch-effort gig at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota where she meets Casey, a guitarist who walked away from his dream long ago. As Dandelion joins Casey’s eclectic and nomadic group of struggling musicians, the kindred spirits make music together and strike up an intoxicating whirlwind romance that moves Dandelion from an obsession with results and a narrow view of success to a deeper appreciation of her artistic journey and the discovery of a voice that is authentically her own.

(+ a treat, at around 1:30)

Sony’s Screen Gems has moved up the domestic release for its rom-com Love Again, starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sam Heughan and Celine Dion as herself, from May 12th to May 5th.

The film evacuates a highly crowded weekend that will see the opening of the Penélope Cruz drama L’immensità, IFC Films’ buzzy Berlin title BlackBerry, Robert Rodriguez’s Ben Affleck starrer Hypnotic, Focus Features’ Book Club: The Next Chapter, Viva Pictures’ animated pic Rally Road Racers, Sony’s manga adaptation Knights of the Zodiac, Sony Pictures Classics’ Yogi Berra doc It Ain’t Over and IFC Films’ Trace Lysette-led drama Monica.

Competitors on its new weekend include Lionsgate’s action-thriller One Ranger with Thomas Jane and John Malkovich, Disney/Marvel’s franchise ender Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Kino Lorber’s drama Chile ’76.

Written and directed by Jim Strouse — the filmmaker behind titles including The Incredible Jessica James, People Places Things, The Winning Season and Grace Is Gone — Love Again asks the question, what if a random text message led to the love of your life? Pic follows Mira Ray (Jonas), who while dealing with the loss of her fiancé, sends a series of romantic texts to his old cell phone number…not realizing the number was reassigned to Rob Burns’ (Heughan) new work phone. A journalist, Rob is captivated by the honesty in the beautifully confessional texts. When he’s assigned to write a profile of megastar Celine Dion, he enlists her help in figuring out how to meet Mira in person… and win her heart.

The film, featuring multiple new songs from Dion, is produced by Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee and Esther Hornstein. Exec producers are Doug Belgrad, Sophie Cassidy, Louise Killin, Jonathan Fuhrman and Dion.

Screen Gems will on Friday release its supernatural horror The Pope’s Exorcist, starring Russell Crowe. Other upcoming titles from the studio include the Bert Kreischer vehicle The Machine (May 26), Insidious: The Red Door (July 7) and the horror pic They Listen (August 25) with Katherine Waterson and John Cho.

Stopmotion: psychological horror with amazing visual effects

Stopmotion is a 2023 British live-action/adult animated horror film directed by Robert Morgan in his feature-length debut. The film stars Aisling Franciosi, Stella Gonet, and Tom York. The story revolves around Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator who is struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother. As Ella's mind starts to fracture, the characters in her animated film take on a terrifying life of their own, and the unleashed power of her imagination threatens to destroy her. The film has received positive reviews, with a 100% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes and glowing reviews from nine different publications. The official trailer for Stopmotion is available on YouTube, and the film is set to be released on February 23, 2024. IFC Films, the distributor of the movie, has previously handled the release of other horror films such as "Birth/Rebirth," "Skinamarink," and "When Evil Lurks". Stopmotion is a unique blend of live-action and animation, weaving together a psychological horror with unbelievable visuals. The film has been described as a "grim-looking bloody nightmare" and a "freaky flick". Director Robert Morgan has expressed his fascination with the creepiness of clay and stop-motion animation, which he believes is often overlooked in favor of more family-friendly fare.

Stopmotion is a horror film about a stop-motion animator named Ella Blake who is struggling to cope with the loss of her overbearing mother. She throws herself into the creation of a macabre puppet film, which becomes the stage for her internal grief. However, the puppets soon take on a life of their own, causing Ella to question her sanity and the power of her imagination. As her mind begins to fracture, the characters in her animated film become increasingly terrifying, and the unleashed power of her imagination threatens to destroy her. The film is described as a psychological horror with a focus on the relationship between creativity and madness.

Stopmotion is a horror film that falls into the following genres:

Animation: The movie is an animated film, featuring stop-motion animation techniques to create a unique and unsettling visual experience.

Horror: "Stopmotion" is a psychological horror film that explores the relationship between creativity and madness. The film revolves around a stop-motion animator who struggles to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother. As she creates a macabre puppet film, her creations come to life, causing her to question her sanity and the power of her imagination.

Psychological Thriller: The film delves into the protagonist's internal struggles and the impact of her grief on her mental state. As her mind begins to fracture, the characters in her animated film become increasingly terrifying, and the unleashed power of her imagination threatens to destroy her.

Drama: The movie also touches on themes of loss, grief, and the complex relationship between a mother and daughter. Ella Blake, the stop-motion animator, is struggling to cope with the loss of her overbearing mother, and her creation of a macabre puppet film serves as a stage for her internal grief.

IFC Films released a new English subtitled trailer for Corsage (2022), coinciding with its North American debut at TIFF. The trailer includes all three languages - German, Hungarian and English - the movie was filmed in.

The Godfather is starting in half an hour on IFC (May 20, 8:00 P.M. EST) in case anybody's interested!

Vesper - Teaser Trailer | HD | IFC Films

Dir: Kristina Buozyte / Bruno Samper Star: Raffiella Chapman / Rosy McEwen / Eddie Marsan

Thomas Doherty, best known for playing the resident flirt on HBO Max’s “Gossip Girl” reboot, is set to star alongside Kiki Layne in “Dandelion.” The romantic drama, backed by IFC Films, is currently in production. IFC plans to release the movie theatrically on a yet-to-be determined date in 2023. Nicole Riegel wrote and directed “Dandelion,” which centers on an aspiring singer-songwriter named Dandelion (Layne), who can’t seem to make her dream come true when she reluctantly takes a gig at a motorcycle rally that’s ways away from her hometown of Cincinnati. At the event, she meets Casey (Doherty), a guitarist who walked away from his dream long ago. As Dandelion joins Casey’s electric and nomadic group of struggling musicians, the two kindred spirits make music together and strike up an intoxicating whirlwind romance that changes her artistic journey. “Dandelion,” according to Kiki Layne, is “a story about the resilience of the human spirit and magic of serendipity.” Layne’s breakout role was opposite Stephan James in Barry Jenkins’ 2018 romantic drama “If Beale Street Could Talk.” She’s also appeared in “The Old Guard” and “Coming 2 America.” Riegel, whose first film was 2020’s drama “Holler,” praised Doherty as a “curious and insightful actor.” “I’m excited for everyone to experience the pure artist that he is,” she said in a statement. “This has been one of the most fulfilling actor-director partnerships of my career.” Doherty, who is 27-year-old and from Scotland, also starred in the Disney Channel series “The Lodge,” the “Descendants” film franchise and Sony’s recent horror thriller “The Invitation.” He is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, Olivia Bell in the UK, Peikoff Mahan Law Office and Rogers & Cowan/PMK. [SOURCE]

'The Lost King,' Athena Film Festival Review of a Superb Film

'The Lost King' is a wonderful film with an Oscar-worthy performance by Sally Hawkins which is based on a true story.

Sally Hawkins as Philippa Langley in The Lost King (courtesy of IFC films and Athena Film Festival) In the superb hybrid comedy-drama-mystery The Lost King, based on Philippa Langley and Michael Jones non-fiction book The King’s Grave: The Search for Richard III (2013) one can see a marvelous Frears film (director) discover information about Richard III beyond William Shakespeare’s titular play…

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Handling the Undead (2024)

On a hot summer day in Oslo, the newly dead awaken. Three families faced with loss try to figure out what this resurrection means and if their loved ones really are back.   NEON distributes in the US. Also known as Håndtering av Udøde. Based on bestselling novel by author John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In). This is a Norwegian zombie drama. Nordisk Film released Håndtering av Udøde in Norway on February 9, 2024. NEON released Handling the Undead exclusively at New York City’s IFC Center on May 31, 2024. NEON releases Handling the Undead in Select Theaters on June 7, 2024. IMDb Director: Thea Hvistendahl Bloody Disgusting:  ‘Handling the Undead’ Trailer – The Dead Return in Adaptation of ‘Let the Right One In’ Author’s Novel Flickering Myth:  Neon’s Norwegian zombie film Handling the Undead unveils trailer and poster Rue Morgue:  “HANDLING THE UNDEAD,” FROM “LET THE RIGHT ONE IN” WRITER, GETS RELEASE DATES, TRAILER AND POSTER   Read the full article