movies

Indie Films Opening July 24: ‘Hadestown: The Musical’, ‘Motor City’

Published

15 hours ago

July 24, 2026

The busiest weekend for indie film openings in weeks has a mix of wide and limited releases, narrative features and docs, genre, special engagements and festival fare from Berlin, Cannes and Venice (2025). The Odyssey has landed, awards season is on the horizon.

Bleecker Street presents Hadestown: The Musical, the live theater capture from its new event cinema division Crosswalk and partner LD Entertainment. The West End production dances onto 1,948 screens in a special engagement that was meant to be five nights only with limited showtimes but has expanded due to demand with exhibitors adding screenings. The film, featuring the original principal cast of Reeve Carney, André de Shields, Amber Gray, Eva Noblezada and Patrick Page, premiered at Tribeca Festival this summer.

The distributor anticipates the second highest opening weekend for a Broadway capture (bested only by Hamilton) after Thursday previews of $1.5 million. Presales have already eclipsed Waitress: The Musical, which Bleecker released in 2023.

The hit musical written by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, won eight Tony Awards in 2019 including Best Musical, and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album with the five original principals of the Broadway company. It follows two intertwining love stories — that of young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice, and of King Hades and his wife Persephone

The film version is directed by Brett Sullivan.

Bleecker’s Crosswalk label saw a $5.5 million opening for Stray Kids: The Dominate Experience earlier this year. George Michael: The Faith Tour later arrives later this year.

Independent Film Company is wide on 1,600 screens with Motor City, the buzzy Venice and Toronto crime-revenge thriller starring Alan Ritchson, Shailene Woodley, Pablo Schreiber and Ben Foster. Directed by Potsy Ponciroli from a screenplay by Chad St. John, it’s set in 1970s Detroit where a working-class romantic is framed by a ruthless gangster after falling for his girlfriend. After years in prison, he returns with only one mission: revenge.

Neon has a double header this weekend. Her Private Hell, directed and produced by Nicolas Winding Refn opens at 670 locations. Starring Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton and Havana Rose Liu. Refn (Drive, Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon). Refinco-wrote alongside Esti Giordani. The psychological thriller premiered at Cannes, Deadline review here.

Synopsis:When a mysterious mist engulfs a futuristic metropolis, unleashing a deadly and elusive entity, a troubled young woman searches for her father. Her quest collides with an American GI on a harrowing odyssey to rescue his daughter from Hell.

The film recently opened the 30th edition of Fantasia Film Festival, where Refn was honored with the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award.

Also from Neon is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Cannes-premiering sci-fi drama Sheep In The Box at IFC Center and Lincoln Square in NYC and AMC Century in LA. In the not-so-distant future, a grieving couple who has lost their son takes a humanoid into their lives with the same face and voice as their late child. Stars Daigo, newcomer Kuwaki Rimu, Haruka Ayase. Also premiered at Cannes, see Deadline review.

Comedy-horror Haunted Heist, the directorial debut of Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) debuts on 373 screens from Variance Films. Four estranged friends (Tiffany Haddish, Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor, Karlous Miller, Rel Howery) reunite at a creepy Airbnb, One of them is planning to rob the house and needs help tracking down the valuable inside. Trouble is, the place is haunted by racist ghosts (Stranger Things’ Brett Gelman and Ari Daya) with dark motives of their own. Shot partly in the historic Detroit mansion once owned by Motown founder Berry Gordy.

Mubi’s black comedy Rosebush Pruning by Karim Aïnouz, written by Efthimis Filippou, opens at the Angelika Film Center in NYC. Stars Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Lukas Gage, Elena Anaya, Tracy Letts, Elle Fanning and Pamela Anderson.

Synopsis: Under the Catalonian sun, a rich white American family lives in hedonistic isolation, seeking love and validation through one another, their designer wardrobes and pop music. When an outsider infiltrates the family, buried tensions surface and blood ties are severed. Premiered at Berlin, see Deadline review.

Expands to Los Angeles next week and across major markets in August.

Watermelon Pictures debuts drama A Sad and Beautiful World by Cyril Aris at the Quad in NYC. Lebanon’s 2026 Beirut-set Oscar submission premiered in Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori where it won the People’s Choice Award.

Synopsis: Across three decades of passion, loss, and hope, Nino and Yasmina are bound by a magnetic relationship. Torn between love and survival, they must decide whether to build a family and seek happiness in Lebanon or leave their home amid the country’s unfolding tragedies. Stars Mounia Akl and Hasan Askil.

Adds LA’s Laemmle Royal, Santa Barbara SBIFF Film Center, Chicago at Uprising Theatre and the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY next week with additional markets to follow.

TIFF-premiering documentary A Life illuminated by Fourth Act Film, on trailblazing marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder, opens at the DCTV Firehouse for a weeklong run. Written and directed by Tasha Van Zandt (The Gun Chronicles: A Story Of America, One Thousand Stories: The Making of A Mural, Tehachapi, The Chronicles of Miami, After Antarctica).

Widder was one of the first women in her field and one of the first people to explore the ocean’s twilight zone, descending to 3,300 feet. She captured the first-ever footage of the elusive giant squid and unveiled the mysteries of deep-sea bioluminescence. The doc follows her quest to document a bioluminescent phenomenon that could change how we understand life on Earth. (Some of Widder’s undersea footage was used in the 2022 TV special Jaws vs. Kraken.)

Adds the Laemmle Glendale and Laemmle Santa Monica Film Center in LA next weekend.

Lorena Alvarado’s Venezuelan debut features, drama Lost Chapters (Los capítulos perdidos) debuts at New York’s IFC Center via Several Futures. World premiered at FID Marseille with additional berths at Munich and Locarno, Goteborg and a North American premiere at New Directors/New Films. Lost Chapters follows Ena, who returns home to Caracas after years spent living abroad, to find herself caught between two generationally shifting worlds.

Viva Pictures is out with slasher horror Pinocchio Unstrung in 500 theaters nationwide. The R-rated reimagining by Rhys Frake-Waterfield starring Robert Englund and Richard Brake is the latest installment of the director’s Twisted Child Universe, a series of dark retellings of classic characters from children’s literature. The pic posted $60k at 385 locations from Thursday preview screenings.

Synopsis: Pinocchio Unstrung unfolds inside an elite London prep school. Influenced by a sinister Cricket (Englund) and created by Geppetto (Brake), Pinocchio launches a violent crusade to carve himself into a real boy like his brother James, one piece at a time.

Definitely not Viva Kids fare but the distributor is offering theaters its usual split screen option, allowing them to adjust days and showtimes.

Frake-Waterfield created Twisted Childhood Universe (TCU ha ha) as a horror film franchise that turns public-domain children’s stories into slasher films. Previous releases include Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 and Bambi: The Reckoning.

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Jim Carrey Thanks ‘The Mask’ Director Chuck Russell For Career “Jewel”

Published

19 minutes ago

July 25, 2026

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Jim Carrey has paid tribute to his The Mask director Chuck Russell, who died Wednesday at the age of 74.

“I consider it a privilege to have worked with Chuck Russell, who during the shooting of The Mask, created an ebullient, childlike atmosphere of wonder and camaraderie on his set,” Carrey said in a statement. “The entire cast and crew were touched and inspired by his playfulness.

“Every one of us,” he continued, “has been many years blessed by that buoyant and timeless moment. I consider The Mask one of the jewels of my creative life. Thank you, Chuck.”

The Mask was one of Carrey’s early career peaks alongside Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber, all released in 1994. The film comedy starred Carrey as a meek bank teller who discovers that an enchanted mask can transform him into a green-faced trickster superhero with the ability to alter himself and his surroundings with cartoon-like ease.

In addition to starring Carrey, The Mask marked the screen debut of Cameron Diaz. The box office hit scored an Oscar nomination for the visual effects created by George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic.

Russell died July 22 at his home in the San Diego area. A cause of death has not been disclosed, but he was pronounced dead after the local fire department responded to his home on a reported medical emergency.

Russell’s other films included A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Blob, Eraser and The Scorpion King.

Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, ‘The Mask’ (1994)

New Line Cinema /Everett Collection

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Donald Trump Delivers Rally-Like Hour Of Rehash In White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech

Published

10 hours ago

July 25, 2026

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Speaking at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Friday, Donald Trump delivered an hour-long speech blending shopworn rally material with a string of leaden one-liners.

He was making his first appearance as president at the dinner, which had to be rescheduled last Aprtil after a shooter attempted to rush the ballroom and was subdued by the Secret Service. While presidents for decades have long used the event’s keynote slot to zing reporters to varying degrees, Trump lapsed into rally mode, only deviating for some personal broadsides at members of the press, marbled with references to their appearance.

After one quip about an elderly U.S. senator’s sex life drew crickets, Trump asked, “Does anybody get that? I thought that was actually great. That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole frickin’ stupid speech. It was the only good one, and that went down with not exactly great laughter.”

Over the rest of the meandering speech (watch the whole thing below), Trump seemed to recognize that many of his would-be jokes were not landing. There were few laughs or reactions at all beyond squirming or fidgeting as he veered in stream-of-consciousness fashion from topic to topic.

“Tonight’s event is even crazier than the last time,” Trump said. “It’s so successful that I’ve been informed by CBS News’s David Ellison” (Ellison is CEO of CBS parent Paramount) that “next year, they’re going to call it the Trump White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” Changing the name, he added, “is the only way you’re going to get me back here.”

The hour-long speech tested the patience of all but the fiercest Trump loyalists in attendance. The audience only sporadically showed a notable reaction, with long periods of near-silence prevailing. Once Trump’s remarks concluded and mentalist Oz Pearlman took the stage, hundreds of guests streamed toward the exits.

Compared with April’s event at the Hilton, the ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria is much smaller. Trump cabinet members mingled with reporters in an aisle near one of Paramount’s tables. Among those sitting at a table with Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim were cabinet members Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy Jr., as well as presidential advisor Stephen Miller as well as Katie Miller and Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

Prior to Trump’s remarks, there were some awkward moments onstage as annual awards were given out, including to some journalists behind investigations of the president. As Wall Street Journal reporters accepted an honor for their Jeffrey Epstein story, Trump shook their hands and then threw his hands up in the air and smiled a bit. Wolf Blitzer, who was presenting the award, noted that he sued the WSJ over the story for $20 billion.

Once he took the lectern, Trump went after Josh Dawsey, one of the WSJ winners, and CNN host Kaitlyn Collins with highly personal digs, but the room fell nearly silent as the would-be laugh lines were delivered. Weijia Jiang, outgoing president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, was stone-faced as Trump went into the roast-like remarks.

Trump had been scheduled to deliver remarks at the April dinner, but it was interrupted and then ended after a gunman breached a security barricade. The incident took place just outside the Washington Hilton ballroom, but shots could be heard among dinner guests. That sent the Secret Service scrambling to remove Trump and Vice President JD Vance from the dais, as well as other guests seated in the ballroom

Trump urged the White House Correspondents’ Association to reschedule, but the new arrangements were for a new venue at the Waldorf, formerly a Trump hotel, and with a new set of security measures in place.

But just as in April, there has been attention on the WHCA and what would be said during the evening, not just by Trump but by other journalists. In addition to a flurry of lawsuits against media outlets and routine rants about the news media, Trump has threatened to pull network broadcast licenses and his Justice Department has subpoenaed reporters to try to obtain their sources. In the latter case, the DOJ this week withdrew subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters who wrote pieces on the lack of security features on the new Air Force One. That followed a court hearing in which a federal judge criticized government attorneys for the way that the subpoenas were issued.

The president skipped the WHCA dinners last year and during his first term, at times holding counter events. But he agreed to attend this year, putting him front and center at an event celebrating some of the journalists he has attacked. Among those receiving awards were reporters for The Wall Street Journal who reported on a bawdy letter with Trump’s signature sent to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump denied he sent the letter, and sued the publication, along with its publisher and Rupert Murdoch.

Dade Hayes contributed to this report.

movies

Guillermo Del Toro Says “No Godd*mn AI” In ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ Re-Release

Published

10 hours ago

July 25, 2026

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As Guillermo Del Toro brings Pan’s Labyrinth back to theaters 20 years later, he’s sticking to tried-and-true restoration techniques.

During Friday’s Hall H panel for the movie’s milestone anniversary at San Diego Comic-Con, the 3x Oscar winner reinforced his stance on using “absolutely no goddamn AI” in the 3D re-release, which premieres Oct. 9 in theaters.

“I said, ‘Absolutely no goddamn AI,’” said Del Toro to applause. “It’s much more expensive. I don’t care. The thing is, what we’re protecting is the beauty and the redeeming power of art.”

Del Toro’s latest comments come after he has frequently denounced generative AI, saying last year that he’d “rather die” than use it in his filmmaking. “Fuck AI!” he has declared on more than one occasion.

At Friday’s panel, the Mexican auteur also recalled the crew of Pan’s Labyrinth not initially understanding his wild vision of a dark fantasy set during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-’39.

Doug Jones in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006) (Picturehouse/Courtesy Everett Collection)

“We had a lot of adversity in the movie,” said Del Toro. “And a lot of the crew was very skeptical. They would see a faun come in in the middle of a civil war movie, and they would say, ‘This fucker is crazy.’ But I remember the first time I knew, we were shooting the Pale Man.”

Re-enacting the Pale Man’s now iconic moment of holding up his own eyes in his hands to see, Del Toro noted that was the moment the crew was on board with his vision. “I said, ‘Ah, see?’” he recalled.

On Oct. 9, Pan’s Labyrinth will be presented theatrically for the first time by Cineverse and Fathom in 4K, with versions available in both 3D and HDR by Barco.