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Above: Mondo poster for The Graduate (Mike Nichols, USA, 1967); artist: Rory Kurtz; lettering: Jay Shaw.On my daily movie poster Tumblr I don’t make a habit of posting fan art or art prints—call them what you will—because I’m most interested in the intersection of commerce and art that is the theatrical movie poster. But I make an exception when something stands out, and nothing stood out last year quite like Rory Kurtz’s beautiful, elegant and unexpected Mondo illustration for The Graduate, which quite rightly racked up over 200 more likes than even its nearest competitor. But its nearest competitor was fan art too: a brilliant poster for Badlands by the insanely talented Adam Juresko, whose art poster for In the Mood for Love (featured in my Maggie Cheung article) was also in the top four. What makes art posters easy to like—beyond their extraordinary artistry...

To most people, the name Theo Padnos doesn’t mean very much. With few journalists finding themselves in the spotlight, Padnos’ career to many people is one that has had little to no real impact. However, his story is one that’s both harrowing and almost too disturbing to truly be believed.

The subject of a new documentary from filmmaker David Schisgall entitled Theo Who Lived, Padnos was a self described struggling journalist until things took a dramatic and drastic turn after slipping into Syria to cover that nation’s civil war. Kidnapped the the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, the Nusra Front, and believed to be working for the CIA due to his fluent handle of the Arabic language, Padnos was held captive for almost two full years. During his 22-month capture he was tortured mercilessly, yet he also used his handle of the language and his own personal strength...

Ever seen Werner Herzog’s “Little Dieter Needs To Fly”? No? How about Werner Herzog’s “Rescue Dawn”? Still probably no, but a less likely “no,” because that film starred Christian Bale during that sweet spot of his career where he’d just made his debut as Batman and elevated his status in the doing. Neither film resonated much with a wider American audience, probably because nobody knew who Dieter Dengler was and they didn’t care to, which doesn’t speak well to the chances of David Schisgall’s new picture, “Theo Who Lived,” a documentary about Theo Padnos, aka Peter Theo Curtis, aka “that guy who got kidnapped by members of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2012.” His story is of the moment, but the moment happens to be ignorant of worldly affairs.

Continue reading Documentary ‘Theo Who Lived’ Is A Riveting Tale Of Resilience [Review] at The Playlist.

October is upon us. The leaves are changing. Sweaters are becoming more abundant. Awards contenders are popping up in theaters nationwide. But those are far from the only films opening throughout the coming weeks. Below, you’ll find every planned theatrical release for the month of October, separated out into films with wide runs and limited ones. (Synopses are provided by festivals and distributors.)

Each week, we’ll give you an update with more specific information on where these films are playing. In the meantime, be sure to check our calendar page, where we’ll update releases for the rest of the year. Stay warm and happy watching!

Week of October 7 Wide

The Birth of a Nation

Director: Nate Parker

Cast: Aja Naomi King, Armie Hammer, Gabrielle Union, Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Boone Junior, Nate Parker

Synopsis: Set against the antebellum South and based on a true story, “The Birth...

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out.

This Past Weekend:

Another bad weekend where nothing really popped, which is bad news for a month at the box office where only Clint Eastwood’s Sully exceeded any expectations. Tim Burton’s new film Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children came out just below my predictions with $29 million, but the Mark Wahlberg-Peter Berg disaster flick Deepwater Horizon was right around where I predicted with $20.2 million. The comedy Masterminds tanked with just $6.5 million for the weekend to end up in sixth place while Disney’s The Queen of Katwe did slightly better than predicted with $2.5 million.

The first full weekend in October has a good deal of competition from the release of the video game Mafia III to the...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films has acquired Anna Muylaert’s (“The Second Mother”) newest feature, “Don’t Call Me Son,” which premiered at this year’s Berlinale. The film is a fact-based drama that follows “17-year-old Pierre [who] is informed that he was kidnapped at birth and that the working-class woman who raised him is not his mother. He is obliged to take up a new life with the middle-class family who has spent 17 years obsessed by his disappearance. His tentative explorations of sexual identity, barely remarked upon by the mother he knew, prove deeply unsettling to the mother he didn’t.

The film will open in New York City at Film Forum on November 2, with a national rollout to follow.