Another Monday, this week we wish you a good morning in the newly established state of emergency (here in Czech Republic), for the second time this year. In this volume, we focused on stories that reflect the current state of society.
This Week's Curated Articles
'Avatar 2' Has Filming Finished, 'Avatar 3' Is 95% Complete, James Cameron Says
The first Avatar movie (out of five) was released in 2009, the second one is finished filming and pushed a year back for 2022 release – although, did you know it was originally planned for 2014?
James Cameron says we're lucky it's only a year because they chose to shoot the movie in New Zealand and during these times, NZ is definitely a place to be (if you've entered the country before the lockdown because their borders are still closed for most of the foreigners).
PS: Avatar 3 is done filming from around 95 %.
Dave McNary
Clint Eastwood Planning to Produce, Direct and Star in Adventure 'Cry Macho'
Clint Eastwood, the guy known for making his movies quickly and on a budget (he often shoots only one or two takes per scene), turned 90 this May. Ninety. Can you imagine? Nevermind, he is still unstoppable.
In the last three years, he directed The Mule and Richard Jewell and now he's planning to direct (and star) in another movie – Cry Macho.
Dave McNary
10 Years Later: A Retrospective on 'The Social Network'
It's 10 years since The Social Network premiered at NYFF and the movie is still great. Fincher and Sorkin did an amazing job, even though they changed quite a few facts. Nowadays we can watch The Social Network again and we can actually see it from a different point of view because a lot has changed. Especially if we watched documentaries such as The Cleaners or The Social Dilemma.
Jason Hellerman
Facebook Slams 'The Social Dilemma' as Sensationalist, Says Netflix Doc Unfairly Scapegoats Platform
We all know there are two sides to every story. Social media gave the power to unknown people to become celebrities, gave us the option to spread the word instantly about anything that happens anywhere in the world, but it also gave the option to trolls to use fake news for their goals, the power to predators to lure their victims and it helped made an entire generation more anxious and depressed.
Jeff Orlowski's The Social Dilemma covers several topics about social media and it does what Chasing Ice and Chasing Corals did – scares the shit out of you. He shows complex ideas in a simple way so that anybody can understand it. Orlowski knows his audience, so he's using a typical, middle-class American family as an example in his scripted part of the documentary.
Anyway, Facebook says that the documentary used their company as a scapegoat and that those issues were already in society before. They also put out a statement saying the movie "does not include insights from those currently working at the companies or any experts that take a different view to the narrative put forward by the film". Well... it's up to each one of us to make our own opinion.
Chris Lindahl
Festival Window
George Clooney to Deliver Virtual Screen Talk at BFI London Film Festival
Clooney is a festival veteran with movies like The Ides of March, The Descendants or Up in the Air. This year he will give a Screen Talk about his latest movie, The Midnight Sky. The talk will be available online on October 18 via BFI's YouTube Channel.
Naman Ramachandran
This Week's Recommendation
The 7 Best New Movies on Netflix in October 2020
As you may have noticed, we here in Spotlight are quite Netflix fans, so here are some movies, that will be released there in October. Brad Pitt in the 2011 drama Moneyball, Joaquin Phoenix in 2013's Her, Fargo from the Coen brothers and many more, check that out.
Adam Chitwood
And if you are a Coen fan, this is a must-read article: Who Are the Coen Brothers — Bio, Early Work and Film Style by Studio Binder!
Mike Bedard
This Week's Trailer
White Noise | Official Trailer | The Atlantic
How did we end up in a world where Alt-Right is almost a mainstream? Where the US president did not denounce white supremacists on a National TV? This directorial debut of Daniel Lombroso gives us an inside look into how a movement known as Alt-Right came to be and how they used fake news, social media and even the news to gain their foothold.
