cineverse, Author at CineVerse Daily

Sep32025 by cineverseNo Comments

Dead Man’s Wire’ Review: Gus Van Sant and Bill Skarsgård Turn a Freak Hostage Incident from 1977 Into a Miniature ‘Dog Day Afternoon’

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By Owen Gleiberman According To The variety It was “Dog Day Afternoon” in miniature, though with more loony-tunes firepower. On Feb. 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis, a disgruntled resident of Indianapolis, walked into the offices of the Meridian Mortgage Company and took one of its executives, Dick Hall, hostage. He wired the sawed-off muzzle of a 12-gauge Winchester shotgun to the back of Hall’s head. One end of the wire was connected to the trigger; the other end was wrapped around Hall’s neck. This meant that if a police officer tried to shoot Kiritsis, or if Hall tried to escape, the gun would go off and kill him. With that gun poised, at any moment, to blow Hall to smithereens, Kiritsis then walked him out of the building and into a car (trailed by random onlookers and a news camera), and t...

Sep22025 by cineverseNo Comments

AI Drama ‘Humans in the Loop’ Adds Kiran Rao, Biju Toppo as Executive Producers (EXCLUSIVE)

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By Naman Ramachandran According To The variety Indian filmmakers Kiran Rao and Biju Toppo have joined as executive producers on “Humans in the Loop,” the Fipresci India Grand Prix-winning feature about an indigenous Adivasi woman working as an AI data-labeller. The move represents a significant boost for the indie feature, which explores urgent themes around artificial intelligence, labor and indigenous knowledge systems. Set in Jharkhand, northern India, the film follows Nehma, an Oraon Adivasi woman whose AI data-labelling work exposes the hidden labor powering “smart” technologies. Adivasis are India’s indigenous tribal communities, comprising roughly 8% of the country’s population. Directed by Aranya Sahay and produced by Mathivanan Rajendran, Sarabhi Ravic...

Sep22025 by cineverseNo Comments

Dwayne Johnson Uncontrollably Sobs as ‘The Smashing Machine’ Gets 15-Minute Venice Standing Ovation and Generates Oscar Buzz

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By Rebecca Rubin, Ramin Setoodeh, Ellise Shafer According To The variety Is Dwayne Johnson headed for the Oscars? Judging by the rapturous reaction to his performance as wrestler Mark Kerr in “The Smashing Machine” at the Venice Film Festival on Monday night, that seems to be the consensus out of Italy. The 53-year-old actor sobbed uncontrollably as the audience on the Lido erupted into 15-minute standing ovation, one of the longest at this year’s festival so far. Johnson, who once performed as the WWE wrestler known as the Rock, has been the star of such commercial fare as “The Mummy,” “Black Adam” and “Baywatch.” But he goes much deeper in his next project, which will be released by A24 in November, as a ’90s fighter with demons. Johnson stars opposite Emi...

Aug312025 by cineverseNo Comments

Do Bigha Zamin’ Preservationist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur Details Venice-Bound Restoration of Bimal Roy Classic

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By Naman Ramachandran According To The variety With the 4K restoration of master Bimal Roy‘s “Do Bigha Zamin” (Two Acres of Land) set for its world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival‘s Classics section, India’s Film Heritage Foundation director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is reflecting on the monumental effort to restore the 1953 Indian cinema landmark — and why the film remains essential viewing seven decades later. “Bimal Roy made ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ two years before Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali,'” Dungarpur tells Variety. “Satyajit Ray said about Bimal Roy that he was able to sweep aside the cobwebs of the old tradition and introduce a realism and subtlety that was wholly suited to the cinema.” For Dungarpur, Roy’s film represents cinema’s power...

Aug312025 by cineverseNo Comments

Preparation for the Next Life’ Review: A Bittersweet Immigrant Love Story Thrives on Two Terrific Performances

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By Carlos Aguilar According To The variety The spark between two soon-to-be lovers ignites inside a Latin nightclub in New York City, as the pair dance with clumsy playfulness to the Spanish romantic ballad “Un Velero Llamado Libertad” (A Sailboat Named Freedom). Their origins and struggles couldn’t be more disparate: She is an undocumented immigrant who’s part of China’s persecuted Uyghur ethnic minority; he’s a white Army veteran with no clear direction and a chronic case of PTSD. Holding on their comforting stares and unspoken exchanges with only Emile Mosseri’s sonic drizzle of a score as company, filmmaker Bing Liu (best known for his Oscar-nominated documentary “Minding the Gap”) delicately traces their blossoming and improbable romance in his first foray into fiction...

Aug302025 by cineverseNo Comments

Hamnet’ Sets the Oscar Bar High at Telluride With Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal’s Heartbreaking Turns

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By Clayton Davis According To The variety In a quaint theater in the Colorado mountains where we lay our scene, a clear Oscar contender emerges. Before Chloé Zhao’s anticipated drama “Hamnet” held its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on Friday, the director took the stage with her two stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal to lead the audience in a meditation before they took in her heartbreaking story. With a room that included some of her peers like “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler and actor-turned-director Harris Dickinson, the immaculate adaptation unspooled before the sold out crowd and captivated the audience. The moving and fictionalized portrait of grief and loss that inspired one of history’s most treasured playwrights held its grip...

Aug302025 by cineverseNo Comments

Kamila Andini’s Venice Gap-Financing Market Project ‘Four Seasons in Java’ Tackles Power, Trauma in Indonesia

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By Naman Ramachandran According To The variety Indonesian auteur Kamila Andini is gearing up for what she calls “the hardest story I’ve ever created” with “Four Seasons in Java,” a magical realist drama that confronts the dark underbelly of progress and power in contemporary Indonesia. The film, now in post-production and at the Venice Gap-Financing Market, follows Pertiwi, a woman who returns to her village after more than a decade in prison for killing a young man while defending herself from attempted rape. Her homecoming coincides with the arrival of electricity to the remote community, setting up what Andini describes as a collision between modernity and personal trauma that she sees “repeating in our daily life.” “Development cost in our country is very expens...