Berlin and the Internet have been abuzz with rumors of a Martin Scorsese-Robert De Niro-Lars Von Trier collaboration — and, at least for the time being, they appear to be true.
The idea behind the project is similar to the film “The Five Obstructions” that Von Trier and Danish helmer Jorgen Leth made in 2003. In [...]

Mike Starr has done his share of mob movies. The veteran character actor and onetime Chicagoan starred in the local “Osso Bucco” and has done supporting turns in “Goodfellas” and dozens of features and TV shows.
When the young filmmakers of Beverly Ridge Pictures approached him in 2007 to co-star in their take on the genre, [...]

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The starkest picture to emerge from the opening days of this year’s Sundance Film Festival may be of an independent film business forced to stretch in untested directions because its old distribution model no longer works.
Standard operating procedure over the years at Sundance, the cinematic bazaar now under way in this resort town, has been simple: show [...]

Only a few years ago, a first-time filmmaker might bring a good movie or fresh idea to the Sundance Film Festival and, simply because they made it into the event, walk away with a paycheck. But not anymore.
Sundance, the top U.S. gathering for independent film, headed into the second-half of its 10-day run on Tuesday with [...]

The snow is piling up in Park City, Utah, almost as fast as the Sundance Film Festival’s unsold movies—especially among the festival’s most prominent titles. But a number of smaller, more personal films, along with one low-budget genre title — are beginning to emerge as the talk of Park City.
The Ryan Reynolds thriller “Buried” screened very [...]

When Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the richest man in the United States, came to the Sundance Film Festival here this week, it wasn’t movies on his mind, it was education — your kids’ education.
A new documentary, “Waiting For Superman,” by director Davis Guggenheim (”An Inconvenient Truth“) looks at what Gates and Guggenheim say is a U.S. public school system [...]

Western filmmakers are increasingly tapping India for inspiration and locations and perceiving it in a new light.
The runaway global success of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire may have triggered the growing focus on the subcontinent, but a spate of new films is going beyond the much flogged India-as-a-land-of-slums-and-squalor syndrome.
Three major films in the official line-up of [...]

It’s the film festival that recently brought us “The Wrestler,” “The Hurt Locker” and “The Visitor.” But this year’s Toronto International Film Festival delivered a departure: indifference.
Along with the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto stands out as a must-visit destination for movie distributors looking to buy new, highbrow works. Yet as successful as the festival has [...]

What does it mean that after four days of North America’s most important film festival all anybody wants to talk about is George Clooney? It means his publicity people are thrilled. It also means that this man has suddenly recaptured the imagination of a media and moviegoing public hungry for the approachable, chummy Hollywood glamour [...]