Advice from Martin Scorsese on the eve of his 80th birthday; Jamie Lee Curtis says Freaky Friday 2 is moving forward; Apple abandons a Trump movie. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.
The Greatest: Martin Scorsese turns 80 tomorrow, and in his honor, we’re revisiting his Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker.
What’s Your Favorite Scorsese Scene? Let us know in the comments and we’ll share some tomorrow.
Shopping List: Looking for something for the filmmaker on your holiday list, and planning to spend between $29 and $40,000? You may enjoy our new list of 11 game-changing film technologies — from cameras to software — that can make moviemaking much easier.
Not Sure What to Get Martin Scorsese for His Birthday? Comic books.
Cool Festival Alert: I had a great talk last week with Omar McClinton, founder of the Various Artists Independent Film Festival, based in Chicago. The festival stands out for its quarterly submission schedule — most festivals are annual — and for welcoming films no matter when they were made. So if you have a project from years ago, you can still enter it. My favorite part is that it also offers a paid internship program. You can learn more about VAIFF on FilmFreeway, and anyone with a financial hardship can get a 20 percent discount with the code UNITEDWESTAND.
Vote of No Confidence: The Ankler reports that Apple quietly optioned Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman’s very good book about Donald Trump – but then decided not to move forward with an adaptation. Hooray! We never have to hear about him again.
Oh Wait: Nevermind. Look, it’s pretty much impossible to come up with a fresh take on Trump, but I personally think James Gray pulls it off in one of my favorite movies of this year, Armageddon Time, by going back to Queens in 1980, and the culture of the Trump family. The Trumps are background players, but their slippery self-righteousness comes shining through.
Freaky Reunion: Jamie Lee Curtis tells Variety that she and Lindsay Lohan are both committed to a sequel to 2003’s Freaky Friday. “There is no scheduled date, but we’re talking,” Curtis said at the Los Angeles premiere of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. “People are talking. The right people are talking.” She also said she and Lohan discussed the possibility just this past weekend. “I’m 64 in a week and Lindsay is 36… [A sequel] lends itself so beautifully… We’re both committed to it, and it’s not ours to make. It’s Disney’s to make and I think they’re interested and we’re talking.” They can use this song!
Comment of the Day: “I thought the whole film was excellent. The director and the cast met the challenge of telling the story. How hard it must have been for them,” says Ann M. Thompson, referring to our post about the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ending.
Sr. Moment: Here’s the trailer for Sr., an upcoming Netflix doc in which Robert Downey Jr. pays tribute to his dad, Robert Downey Sr., director of Putney Swope, among other films.
Main image: Jamie Lee Curtis, left, and Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday.
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