EDITORIAL

APPLE TV
Apple TV+ debuted the trailer for “The Last Thing He Told Me,” the gripping limited series based on the acclaimed, No. 1 New York Times bestselling novel by Laura Dave. Starring and executive produced by Jennifer Garner, the seven-part drama features an ensemble cast that also includes Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Angourie Rice, Aisha Tyler, Augusto Aguilera, Geoff Stults and John Harlan Kim. “The Last Thing He Told Me” is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and 20th Television, and will premiere globally on Apple TV+ with the first two episodes on Friday, April 14, 2023, followed by new episodes every Friday through May 19...

Every element that goes into a film has its milestone moments in Hollywood history, and for stop-motion animation on film, the iconic, groundbreaking King Kong of 1933 is one. Not just for stop-motion animation either — special effects in general owe a lot to the revolutionary film about a giant ape, Kong, who falls for the beautiful Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) both figuratively and literally. Willis O'Brien was brought in as the special effects' supervisor for King Kong. His first step was to call on frequent collaborator Marcel Delgado, who as a team had become well known throughout Hollywood. A full-size bust, arm, and leg were created for close-up scenes, but for the most part Kong on screen is portrayed by a 18-inch puppet, made from metal, rubber, and fur. The puppet, as well as the other creatures seen in the film, were painstakingly shot one frame at a time, an animation process that took over a year to complete, including a seven-week period to create the Kong/T.Rex fight scene. The stop-motion work alone is revolutionary, but the true genius of O'Brien's work in King Kong is how he brought the animated sequences and the filmed sequences together...

The initial MPAA rating system included G, M, R, and X as classifications; “M” was later changed to “GP” in 1970, and again to “PG” in 1972. While the rating carried the same restrictions on allowable audiences as they do today, “X” rated films were more widely seen as potentially commercially viable. The Evil Dead, Fritz the Cat, and A Clockwork Orange were all commercially and critically successful, and the X-Rated Midnight Cowboy even received the Academy Award for Best Picture. The PG-13 rating was instituted in 1984 at the suggestion of Steven Spielberg after the PG-rated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins faced blowback over their violent imagery and dark themes. Spielberg recommended a middle ground between PG and R, and the MPAA took him up on it...

For a field that has often blurred the line between cinema and anthropology, documentary filmmakers have long set off for foreign lands, lured by the prospect of “discovering” some seemingly untold story, set against an exotic backdrop that is all but certain to attract audiences and funding bodies alike. Rarely in the past have filmmakers from the West questioned the entitlement that enables them to tell those stories, or whether those communities have the right to share their own story in their own way. “For a very long time, this has just been an acceptable practice,” said Selin Murat, markets manager at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), during a panel discussion Tuesday at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival. “There has been a pervasive idea that you can tell whatever story you want without understanding the sociopolitical dynamics at play.”...

Italian producer Andrea Iervolino is planning to bring to the big screen “Maserati: a Racing Life,” an English-language biopic about the family behind the high-performance automobiles that, along with Ferrari and Lamborghini, Italy is known for. Iervolino’s ILBE Group – in which he is partnered with Monika Bacardi – previously produced the Bobby Moresco-directed biopic “Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend” and is also among producers of Micheal Mann’s upcoming “Ferrari” with Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz and Shailene Woodley. He told Variety he sees “Maserati” as a natural segue to those films about Italy’s iconic automakers....

Rocky Balboa is missing from 'Creed III. It has been known for a while that Sylvester Stallone would not be appearing in the ninth movie of the franchise, but the reason behind it is a little murkier and has a couple of different facets to it. Stallone doesn't see a dime from the franchise outside what he is being paid to appear in the movies that were inspired by Stallone himself. He wrote the screenplay for Rocky and created the gravy train that he believes PRODUCER Irwin Winkler is riding all the way to the bank. It doesn't look like he’s wrong, either. The star is steadfast about it being about more than just the cash and more about what he'll have left behind when he's gone, stating, "I wrote it. I thought it would be nice to say, 'Here’s the gesture darling here. Beautiful children, beautiful wife. When I’m long gone, this is you. This is what I made for you."...