‘Jockey’ Film Review: Clifton Collins Jr. Runs for the Roses in Powerful Drama

In an uncanny instance of art mirroring life, two major Hollywood movies will premiere just weeks apart, both of which depict relentless campaigns by American government intelligence agencies to silence influential Black voices. They follow closely after an impeachment trial in which the majority of GOP senators showed their complicity in violence from white supremacist groups by voting to acquit the Instigator in Chief.

is an awards-season favorite, and it doesn’t let you forget that for a second.Beneath the veneer of prestige, however, is a prescient and affecting story of a lost American class: van dwellers.They’re often older adults who, while reeling from the aftermath of the 2008 recession, became migrant workers to make ends meet.

If America currently howls in psychic pain, broken and divided, suffering from various emotional, spiritual, political crises, hemorrhaging each day in existential agony from the soul-crushingly bleak, relentlessly interminable horror that is life during a pandemic and the failure of leadership to see us through it, let me submit to you that American comedy is also lost and in deep crisis.

Frank Moreno, who was known for screening films at Cannes for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to purchase and distribute in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, died Wednesday in Florida. He was 82 and died after a brief battle with cancer, according to his daughter.

Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Feral State, written and directed by Jon Carlo (First We Take Brooklyn) and starring AnnaLynne McCord and Ronnie Gene Blevins. The indie thriller, which wrapped shooting late last year, will now get a theatrical release in May along with its digital bow.

Dianne Durham was the first Black gymnast to win a U.S. national championship, in 1983.Durham trained with notable Romanian-American coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi, and she was a teammate of Mary Lou Retton.

Director Rod Lurie, an Army veteran and West Point alum, drew upon his years of military experience while making “The Outpost,” a war film based on Jake Tapper’s book about the Battle of Kamdesh, during which a few dozen Americans were ambushed by hundreds of Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan.“I’m a military guy, I served a long time ago,” Lurie told TheWrap’s Steve Pond as part of TheWrap’s Screening Series.

IFC Films has acquired the North American rights to “Holler,” a coming-of-age drama starring Jessica Barden (“End of the F***ing World”) that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2020.Nicole Riegel made her directorial debut on “Holler,” which also stars Gus Halper, Pamela Adlon, Becky Ann Baker and Austin Amelio and is executive produced by Paul Feig.IFC Films plans to release “Holler” in June 2021.

One of Wednesday's biggest Golden Globe surprises may have come in the two nominations awarded to Netflix's Emily in Paris, for both best TV series, musical or comedy, and best actress in a TV series, musical or comedy, for star Lily Collins. Collins, a producer on the Darren Star series about an American girl in France, working at a marketing firm, is also celebrating the six nominations (leading the film categories) for Mank, in which she co-stars.

Watch Video: How 'In the Same Breath' Director Got Multiple Camera Crews in Wuhan to Shoot COVID DocAs with previous efforts such as “One Child Nation” or “I Am Another You,” the director embeds her personal stakes as they relate to the subject matter. Rather than being an impartial observant, Wang shares her fears after traveling to her hometown with her family around the time Wuhan went under lockdown on January 23, 2020.

What does dismantling the American carceral state look like? How can meaningful and radical police reform actually be enacted? After years of tireless work by activists, acting upon decades of injustice against the poor and People of Color, these issues of now part of mainstream political platforms.

With a Golden Globe  nomination for her eponymous Emily in Paris role announced Wednesday morning, Lily Collins told Deadline she’s “honored” to be counted, and thrilled by the show’s nomination and by the several nominations for her “Mank family”—David Fincher’s film in which she starred alongside Gary Oldman.

The evocative closing shot in Cusp — a documentary whose aesthetic beauty counterpoints the raw experiences mostly shrugged off by its unguarded subjects — shows three young women at a local swimming hole as one takes a flying leap off the rocks high above the water. The image conjures associations with countless American coming-of-age stories, incisively capturing the exhilaration and fear of having a whole life ahead of you.

Video: Why It’s Hard to Make Vaccines: Explained (The Independent)Marjorie Taylor Greene refuses to publicly admit Parkland was real despite call with victim's motherAndrew Cuomo says this is no time to act stupidlyJared Kushner: The United States stands with IsraelWWE to crown first ever UK ChampionBiden makes remarks on the fight against COVID-19GOP should cut ties with Marjorie Taylor Greene, says McConnell adviserElie Honig explains why Trump lost his impeachment legal teamThe Lincoln

Curious is the current emphasis on women’s trauma in American genre film—the way it’s discussed online, marketed, singled out in the headlines—as if trauma were not already deeply embedded in the historical fabric of horror movies. Of course, in a time when more women filmmakers than ever are being given the opportunity to tell their stories, the rise of feminist horror should come as no surprise, especially given the #MeToo phenomenon and efforts to destigmatize mental illness.

You don't find subjects much more disarming than Rita Moreno, whose seven-decade career on stage and screen is described in Mariem Pérez Riera's celebratory documentary as both the essence of the American Dream and the tenacious attainment of it despite dispiriting obstacles. "You must never really believe anything about your fame and all that kind of bullshit," says Moreno with characteristic unfiltered charm.

13-year-old Sammy Ko (Miya Cech) is a problem child. Prone to skipping class, smoking cigarettes, and mouthing off to her teachers, she’s the opposite of the meek model student Hollywood typically imagines when writing young Asian-American characters.

One of last year's big Sundance breakouts was the documentary Boys State, in which high school students play-acted the mechanics of American democracy with results that were simultaneously inspiring and disheartening. Hitting a somewhat similar sweet spot is Maisie Crow's At the Ready, another documentary portrait of Texas teens dipping their toes into grown-up professional waters.