Director Steve McQueen & Cast Discuss ‘Lover’s Rock’: “An Image of Freedom” [NYFF]

Steve Martin has commented on the absence of comedy films at the Academy Awards.The actor, who has starred in hit comedies such as Father of the Bride and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, was speaking at a virtual session at the New Yorker Festival on Wednesday night (7 October), when he said: “It’s a lifetime of dismissal of comedy.

Jill Goldsmith Co-Business EditorJerry Seinfeld gave a shout out to Netflix for helping shift perceptions of comedians — and their paydays — as he and Steve Martin trash talked the genre-snubbing Oscars.“I think for a long time, and actually until Netflix, comedians were just not as important, not as valuable, not considered major artists or real artists.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor“Schitt’s Creek” actor Sarah Levy is social-distancing to her next gig.Levy has been cast in “Distancing Socially,” a COVID-inspired indie film about relationships and the challenges of virtual communication during lockdown.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIn “Red, White and Blue,” the fifth and final film of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology (and the third to be shown at this year’s New York Film Festival, after the lilting reggae house-party movie “Lovers Rock” and the wrenching social-protest courtroom drama “Mangrove”), Leroy Logan (John Boyega), a British research scientist, figures that he’s had enough of the lonely work of staring at tissue specimens through a microscope, so he decides to become a member

Todd McCarthy Red, White and Blue, the third and final installment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe quintet of films about racial issues specific to Great Britain being world premiered at the New York Film Festival, zeroes in on the ordeal of a young black Londoner set on helping to definitively break the color barrier at London’s Metropolitan Police Force in the early 1980s.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

Variety Staff Follow Us on TwitterSteve Barnes, a personal injury lawyer who built a Buffalo firm into a national franchise with partner Ross Cellino Jr. through an aggressive TV advertising strategy complete with an infectious jingle, died Friday in a plane crash in Western New York.Barnes was flying the small plane that crashed in Pembroke, N.Y., 30 miles northeast of Buffalo.

NEW YORK -- In a movie year mostly lacking big, ambitious releases, Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” anthology is an unqualified main event. While many other filmmakers are on hold, the “12 Years a Slave” director has raced to finish not one but five new films.The movies, spanning 1968 to 1985, are each individual stories about the West Indian community in London.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios sells Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe”; ZDF commissions natural history series “Africa From Above”; “Married at First Sight” gets live wedding; ITV orders game-show format “Game of Talents”; travel format “Heads and Tails” goes to Spain; Jellyfish promotes Natalie Llewellyn; German Film Office opens in New York; and Monte-Carlo TV Festival sets 2021 dates.BBC Studios has secured several global pre-sales for Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen‘

Steve McQueen's ravishing Lovers Rock summons a potent sense of a community gathering that caresses and cocoons those present, shutting out the hostilities of the city outside. The second movie to premiere at the New York Film Festival from the director's Small Axe anthology for Amazon and BBC, Mangrove, which is set a decade earlier, in 1968-70, shows how another regular gathering place for the same immigrant community provides a cherished home away from home.

Todd McCarthy If Lovers Rock provided a sensuous, feel-good vibe to the opening night of this year’s unusual New York Film Festival, Mangrove supplies a follow-up thwack to the head and punch to the gut.

will soon be live from New York once again!The legendary sketch show announced the lineup for its season 46 premiere on Thursday.

Global’s “Saturday Night Live” is returning home to 30 Rock.

“If you are the big tree, we are the small axe,” this is the Jamaican proverb that has inspired filmmaker Steve McQueen‘s, “Small Axe,” a collection of five films inspired by real-life events about ordinary people showing courage, belief, and resilience to overcome injustice and achieve something transformative in their West Indian community.

Earlier in the week, the 2020 incarnation of the New York Film Festival got underway officially, with one part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, Lovers Rock, serving as the Opening Night Selection. Having seen it, the movie serves as both a strong start for NYFF this year, as well as a smaller and far less awards friendly selection.

Coco Rocha closed out the Christian Siriano New York Fashion Week show with her budding baby bump on full display.On Thursday, September 17, the 32-year-old model hit the runway in a head-turning red gown featuring a ruffled high-low hemline.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticIn the most transporting scene of Steve McQueen’s “Lovers Rock,” we’re at a London house party that has just hit its smoky seductive dirty-dancing groove. It’s 1980, and most of the revelers have West Indian roots.

Todd McCarthy Watching Lovers Rock is akin to going to see Romeo and Juliet and only staying through the first act, to departing a basketball game after the first quarter, to sipping the soup and skipping the rest of the meal. A mere wisp of a thing, Steve McQueen’s 68-minute feature, the only fictional section of a five-film anthology called Small Axe about London’s West Indian community between the late 1960s and 1980, steeps you in the atmosphere and music of the latter date.

Also Read: Steve McQueen's 'Lovers Rock' Set as New York Film Festival Opening Night FilmCinematographer Shabier Kirchner (“Skate Kitchen”) gets us so close to the action that we’re reminded of why students at Catholic high-school dances are always admonished to leave room for the Holy Spirit.This is very much an ensemble piece, introducing us to various members of London’s West Indian community, but our protagonist is Martha (Amarah-Jae St.