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Beyond the action, the horrendously poorly portrayed rules of karate, and the memorable quotes and characters, the "Karate Kid" franchise has always had time for romance. From the very start, this franchise has been built on unlikely romances, whether it's Ralph Macchio's scrawny new kid Daniel Larusso going after rich, popular girl Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) in the first film or immediately leaving Ali for a summer romance during a trip to Japan with Kumiko in "The Karate Kid Part II."

Likewise, the legacy sequel TV series "Cobra Kai" has romance built into its DNA. The show —— which is the closest to a full-on live-action sports anime and is set in a world of heightened stakes where everything revolves around karate — has explored romances for both the many new kids on the block and their senseis — with Johnny Lawrence's arc from jerk to a legit good partner being a highlight of the series.

Exclusive: Mike Goodridge’s growing UK production company Good Chaos, which is in Cannes with Un Certain Regard title Santosh, has had a minority equity investment from Cameron Lamb’s Paris-based audio platform Alexander.

The investment will give Alexander an opportunity to develop its growing non-fiction IP library, across film and TV formats, while Good Chaos has been able to grow its headcount, operations and production reach.

The companies’ first joint film project is Wife, Witch, Poisoner, Whore, a period thriller based on the Alexander audiobook by Katherine Rundell, and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter.

The official synopsis reads: “Beautiful, rich, clever, and determined English noblewoman Frances Howard was a dazzling celebrity at the court of James I. But when the unhappy teenage bride rebelled against the patriarchy of her day, she was put on trial for witchcraft, infidelity and murder – very nearly at the expense of her life.”

Good Chaos is on a roll.

The Austin-based filmmaking duo of David and Nathan Zellner have spent the last decade-plus upending genre conventions within the coming-of-age movie (2012’s Kid-Thing), the road movie, and the western (2018’s Damsel). With their latest feature, Sasquatch Sunset, the brother filmmakers have concocted a work that’s entirely sui generis. A film they billed ahead of its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival as “a year in the life of a singular family” is, in fact, a chronicle of four Bigfoot-like creatures roaming the forest without human interruption or intervention.

Sasquatch Sunset picks up a thread from the Zellner brothers’ 2011 short “Sasquatch Birth Journal 2,” which treats the American mythical figure as an unironic anthropological specimen. The feature takes their exploration even further as it tracks a mother and father (Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough), along with their two children (Christophe Zajac-Denek and Nathan Zellner), as they interact with the animal kingdom and natural world.

Jesse Eisenberg and Christophe Zajac-Denek Photo: Bleeker Street Sasquatch Sunset has more in common with a nature documentary than a narrative film: 89 minutes of wordless, but not silent, footage of a bigfoot family, which, at first, is only discernable by height. Even Sunset’s most recognizable star, Jesse Eisenberg, is...

Jesse Eisenberg and Christophe Zajac-DenekPhoto: Bleeker Street

Sasquatch Sunset has more in common with a nature documentary than a narrative film: 89 minutes of wordless, but not silent, footage of a bigfoot family, which, at first, is only discernable by height. Even Sunset’s most recognizable star, Jesse Eisenberg, is lost...

Sound! Euphonium season 3 is just around the corner. As Kumiko steps up as president in her final year, she'll be overseeing lots of new band members—and we're meeting four of them today! A new key visual has been released, sharing a look at the cast of the upcoming season: Related: Date A Live V, Sound! Euphonium Season 3 and More Anime to Stream on Crunchyroll Among the cast featured in the visual are four new first-years: Shiina Natsukawa (Tsuruno Yui in Magia Record ) as Suzume Kamaya Ayane Matsuda (Hotaru Kurenai in Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You ) as Yayoi Kamiishi Momoka Terasawa (Gakuto Yuzuki in The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons ) as Kaho Hariya Emiri Suyama (Tomo in Oda Cinnamon Nobunaga ) as Sari Yoshii Related: Sound! Euphonium Season 3 Drops Kumiko Character Trailer, April 7 Premiere Date The Sound! Euphonium anime is directed by Tatsuya Ishihara at Kyoto Animation with Naoko Yamada chief...

"Not fake, it's real!" Bleecker Street has revealed a brand new trailer for a 2024 re-release of a lost indie cult classic called Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival as the latest Zellner Brothers creation, their fifth feature film at the time after Kid-Thing in 2012. It played at tons of fests, became a cult hit, but barely got a proper release and hasn't been available to watch on VOD for a while. In honor of the film's 10th anniversary, and with the wild return of the Zellner Brothers glorious Sasquatch Sunset this year, it's landing in theaters again in March before the Sasquatches arrive in April. Rinko Kikuchi stars as Kumiko, a jaded Japanese office worker who discovers a hidden copy of Fargo (1996) on VHS, believing it to be a treasure map indicating the location of a large case of money. She travels to America...

The urban legend of a woman who died trying to find the fictional “Fargo” suitcase full of cash became an indie drama breakout hit for filmmakers the Zellner Brothers.

The Zellners debuted “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, capturing the tale of a Tokyo-based office worker, played by Oscar-nominated “Babel” star Rinko Kikuchi, who trekked to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in search of the money that Steve Buscemi’s character buries in the snow at the end of the Coens’ “Fargo.” The blurring of fact and fiction, reality and film, turned “Kumiko” into a cult classic in the making. And the film has since been notoriously hard to find, as it’s not currently available on streaming platforms.

Now, in honor of the film’s 10-year anniversary, Bleecker Street is re-releasing the feature in theaters and on demand. “Kumiko” is directed by David Zellner from a script he co-wrote with his brother Nathan Zellner.

Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg shape-shift into shaggy, mythical beasts in the absurdist comedy Sasquatch Sunset.

Less than a minute into Bleecker Street’s Sasquatch Sunset trailer, one bearded sasquatch dry humps another in a North American forest. The trailer then follows the family of ape-like creatures as they forage, hike, and interact with wildlife over the course of a year. Christophe Zajac-Denek (Oz the Great and Powerful) and Nathan Zellner also star as members of the Bigfoot tribe, who are unrecognizable by makeup and costume head Steve Newburn’s...

I have a confession to make: For much of my teenage years, I identified as what can only be described as a Sasquatch truther. I was radicalized by that infamous Zapruder-like footage of a supposed Bigfoot out for a casual stroll in 1967 and attempted to chase that high ever since. I loved watching all those goofball Discovery Channel specials where supposedly reputable people trekked into the forests of the Pacific Northwest, set up cameras in areas rumored to host a high number of Bigfoot sightings, knocked pieces of wood together to attract the big guy (or gal!), and just waited around for the urban legend to just, I don't know, show itself. The aughts were a strange and confusing time, folks.

All of that is to say that this movie we're about to talk about just might be the very definition of "Up my alley." After making waves during its...

Brothers David and Nathan Zellner have wowed audiences with their previous works, like 2014’s “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” and 2018’s “Damsel.” Ever the eccentric duo, their movies tend to be a comedy showcase while inspiring some life lessons along the way. Often, they tread towards urban legends as themes in their films, which speaks to their newest obsession with the North American mythical figure of Bigfoot.

You know Bigfoot. He, or she, is often described as a giant hairy ape upright on two legs walking around the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Many have claimed to have seen Bigfoot, but few have captured the creature on film, or so they claim. But what does Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, do when they aren’t simply walking around waiting for tourists to take their picture?

David and Nathan Zellner based this feature film off a previous short film they worked on in 2010 called...

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the weird and wonderful will have seen, if not heard of, the Patterson-Gimlin footage, the cryptoozological equivalent of the Zapruder film.

Shot in 1967 in the forests of Northern California, it purports to show a large, ape-like creature with an elongated forehead striding purposefully into the trees. Unlike an ape, the creature walks upright, and unlike the furtive behavior of any other forest creature, it has the casual air of the average human being popping over to the 7-Eleven to pick up a gallon of milk.

Most people who see the footage wonder what the hell this damn thing is. But the sibling directors of Sasquatch Sunset have a couple more questions that they’d like answered. Like, where is it going? And what does it do all day?

If, like David and Nathan Zellner, you have ever pondered the quotidian life of the Sasquatch,...

Welp, it looks like we need to update our Most Anticipated 2024 List. And maybe this is a big tease for tomorrow’s Sundance 2024 line-up? Because, today, Bleecker Street Studios announced a film we weren’t sure was shot or ready, but it surely is. Titled “Sasquatch Sunset,” it is the new film from directing duo David and Nathan Zellner, known for helming “Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter,” “Damsel,” and most recently, episodes of Showtime’s excellent series “The Curse” from Nathan Fielder, Emma Stone, and Benny Safdie.

Continue reading First Look: Bleecker Street To Release Zellner Brothers’ Mysterious ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ Film Starring Jesse Eisenberg & Riley Keough In 2024 at The Playlist.

US theatrical release set for 2024. Protagonist Pictures represents international sales.

Bleecker Street said on Tuesday it will release Sasquatch Sunset from directing duo David and Nathan Zellner starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg after boarding US rights in 2022 prior to the low-key shoot in northern California.

The Square Peg, Zbi, and The Space Program production is described as a year in the life of a singular family. Plot details remaining under wraps. The cast includes Nathan Zellner and Christophe Zajac-Denek.

Producers are Lars Knudsen, Tyler Campellone, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, George Rush, Eisenberg, and David Harari, Ari Aster serves as...

Bleecker Street has quietly snapped up U.S. rights to Sasquatch Sunset, the newest feature from renowned brother filmmakers David and Nathan Zellner, for release in theaters in 2024.

Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & The Six), Jesse Eisenberg (Fleishman Is in Trouble), Nathan Zellner, and Christophe Zajac-Denek (Twin Peaks: The Return) star in the pic, which shot under the radar in Northern California in 2022. The deal with Bleecker came together just ahead of production.

While Sasquatch Sunset is described as “a year in the life of a singular family,” additional plot details are under wraps. David Zellner scripted the pic, which is currently in post. A Square Peg, Zbi, and The Space Program production, the film is produced by Lars Knudsen, Tyler Campellone, Nathan Zellner, David Zellner, George Rush, Eisenberg, and David Harari. Ari Aster exec produced alongside Keough and Gina Gammell under their Felix Culpa Banner. Protagonist Pictures...

First published April 22nd, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.

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The always delightful Andrew Garfield earned an Oscar nomination this year for his performance in tick, tick… Boom! — and it was well deserved. He...

When “Drive My Car” received four Oscar nominations this week, it represented a triumph of arthouse cinema at a moment when it could really use the boost. The Academy might have wished that one of the 10 Best Picture slots went to James Bond or Spider-Man, but Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story has become a better case study for what it takes to keep the movie business alive.

Daring, non-English language cinema challenges even the bravest distributors. That was certainly the situation at Cannes last July, when more than one buyer told me they were having a hard time parsing the marketplace potential for several of the festival’s critical darlings. One of these was “Drive My Car,” which took 30 minutes to roll its opening credits and used a quiet, enigmatic approach to craft the world of a widowed theater director rediscovering his creative passion...

There are Spoilers ahead for "Cobra Kai" season 4, so be prepared. I will show you no mercy!

"Cobra Kai" is known for its cameos. Throughout the Netflix series' four seasons, we've had appearances from most of the big names from the movies. Some of them have moved the plot along and become main characters like Thomas Ian Griffith's Terry Silver, while others have come and gone like Elisabeth Shue's Ali Mills Schwarber and Tamlyn Tomita's Kumiko. Yuji Okumoto's Chozen returned at the end of the fourth season and is clearly going to be a big part of season 5. Cameos drive this show...

The post Cobra Kai Season 4 Landed That Major Cameo Due to Some Fangirl Tweets appeared first on /Film.

The Sundance Institute on Thursday announced 10 participants for its upcoming weeklong Producers Lab — emerging producers behind five nonfiction and five fiction feature projects who will get a year of mentorship, creative support, and networking opportunities.

Additionally, Sundance also announced some of the lineup for its Producers Summit, which runs from August 2-5 on the online Sundance Collab platform. The event brings together financiers, agents, and distributors, alongside emerging and mid-career producers for discussions around issues in the field. Hasan Minhaj will deliver a keynote on the critical role of bold, personal storytelling.

The Producers Lab will take place July 25-29, and represent the beginning of a year of support participants will receive. On the fiction side, this year’s advisors include Mollye Asher (“Nomadland”), Amy Lo (“Nancy”), Paul Mezey (“After Yang”), and Laura Rister (“The Tale”). Nonfiction advisors include Violeta Bava (“Azor”) Jannat Gargi (Vice Studios), Andrea Meditch (“Fathom”), and...

The Karate Kid Part II distinguished itself from forgettable sequel contemporaries, with a radical change in locale and a focus on character development in lieu of retreading its predecessor’s plot. Consequently, Cobra Kai Season 3’s recently revealed focus on Part II—revisiting its setting of Okinawa and key characters Chozen and Kumiko—was exciting news. Now, a new preview clip reveals how Daniel’s trip will yield a surprising connection to the late Miyagi.

The clip spotlights the franchise return of Tamlyn Tomita, who reprises her Part II role of Kumiko in a scene that clearly takes place in Okinawa—this time actually shot in the Japanese southern prefecture, not Part II’s domestic production substitute of Hawaii. While we’re not catching them during an awe-inspiring sightseeing tour, the clip does show the long-awaited reunion of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel with his love interest (and tea ceremony partner...

“Green Book,” which Universal releases Nov. 16, centers on the unlikely real-life friendship between Jamaican-American classical pianist Don Shirley and his driver Tony Vallelonga, a laid-off New York nightclub bouncer, during a 1962 tour of the Midwest and the racially tense South. The film premiered at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival in September and has surged to become an Oscar contender, including possible actor noms for the two leads, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen.

Director-co-writer Peter Farrelly, best known for offbeat comedies (“There’s Something About Mary”), says it was a tough production: “We had 35 days and $20 million to shoot this 120-page script — and with dozens of locations, all set in 1962.” The result looks effortless, partly because of the cast and crew: “A lot of people did a lot of work for very little money because they liked the story.”

Sean Porter, Cinematographer

“I’m a story guy, so I wanted a visual balance.

Emerging filmmakers can parlay even the smallest of financial grants into major career-advancing moves, per director Richard Linklater.

Interviewed by Variety film critic Peter Debruge, the helmer was speaking at the Variety Critics Corner series at the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival. He was referring to the types of funds awarded by the Austin Film Society, a nonprofit organization he established in 1985 in his hometown of Austin, Texas – originally to screen classic and auteur films.

Afs – which is being showcased as part of the Made in Texas program at Karlovy Vary – has grown to own a cinema, manage local soundstages, and provide funding to help Texas-based artists at the script stage, in post, or in any other way that will advance their projects. These modest grants, he said, are a way to incubate or jump-start new films.

Linklater came to Karlovy Vary to accompany Made in Texas, as well as...

Chicago – The familiar archetypes of the Hollywood Western… the dusty town, the swinging saloon doors and the cowboys looking the part… are all present and accounted for in “Damsel,” written and directed by David and Nathan Zellner. The twist comes in the action of the characters, portrayed by Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”), Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) and the Zellners themselves.

Mia Wasikowska and Robert Pattinson of ‘Damsel’

Photo credit: Sony Pictures Classics

“Damsel” opens on a typical Western-style hoedown, in which Penelope (Wasikowska) and Samuel (Pattinson) seem very connected, possibly in love. The scene shifts to Samuel returning to the territory to marry Penelope, even bringing along a miniature pony named Butterscotch as a gift.

David and Nathan Zellner of ‘Damsel’

Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

Samuel meets a false preacher named Henry (David Zellner) – who took his religious persona from the Old Preacher (Robert Forster) – and recruits...

David and Nathan Zellner had been making oddball shorts and features out of Austin, Texas for more than 15 years when their 2014 Sundance-winning “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” became an unexpected cult hit, grossing over half a million dollars in limited release and generating a new international fan base for the brothers over the course of a year. It wasn’t your obvious breakout: the story of a Japanese woman (Rinko Kikuchi) who believes the story of “Fargo” was real and journeys around the world with her pet bunny to find the hidden briefcase of cash from that 1994 film.

But the outrageous premise meshed with a surprisingly poignant tone that caught audiences by surprise. Suddenly a pair of filmmakers known mostly on the festival circuit and around the Austin film scene was getting offers for more work — just not the kind they wanted.

“We were very quick to turn stuff down,” said David,...

When Robert Pattinson first received the script for the David and Nathan Zellners’ “Damsel,” a quirky, inverted western in which various cockeyed suitors pine for love of a woman disinterested in their advances, he passed. “It just seemed like one of those things that’s never going to get financing, so it just didn’t really register with me,” he said.

A few weeks later, he went to see “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” in theaters, not realizing it came from the same sibling director pair. He called his agent, eager to meet whoever was behind it.

“He was like, yeah, you just got offered a role for their new movie and you didn’t meet with them,” Pattinson recalled. He circled back on “Damsel,” which sees him entering strange terrain for an actor whose penchant for stone-faced roles has evolved from the “Twilight” franchise to auteur-driven work like David Cronenberg...

What happens when you put two of the biggest indie movie stars in the same film and throw in an adorable, scene-stealing miniature horse into the mix? You get one of the summer’s must-see movies. “Damsel,” the latest feature from “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” directors David and Nathan Zellner, reunites “Maps to the Stars” duo Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska to turn the Western genre upside down.

The official synopsis from Magnolia reads: “Samuel Alabaster (Pattinson), an affluent pioneer, ventures across the American Frontier to marry the love of his life, Penelope (Wasikowska). As Samuel traverses the Wild West with a drunkard named Parson Henry (David Zellner) and a miniature horse called Butterscotch, their once-simple journey grows treacherous, blurring the lines between hero, villain and damsel.”

“Damsel” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and was named one of the festival’s best films by IndieWire. In...

Americans have always been uniquely susceptible to a gold rush mentality, the promise of easy riches just over the horizon. This idea first lured people across the Atlantic, then across the prairies, and now in the 21st century, across the Pacific to China. “Ghostbox Cowboy,” the feature-length drama debut of documentarian John Maringouin, tells the story of one such fortune-hunting American, Jimmy Van Horn as he travels to Shenzen with a few bitcoins, the prototype of a ghost-communication device, and limitless dreams.

Now that it’s all over, let’s take an Oscar-specific look at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which could very well serve as a partial crystal ball into what will be happening in the awards race a year from now.

In the past few years, the best picture-nominated likes of “Precious,” “An Education,” “The Kids Are All Right,” “Winter’s Bone” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild” all debuted at the festival. Last year’s crop, however, was a major exception to the rule: No Sundance film got a best picture nomination or any acting nominations. The only narrative film to get a nod was “Before Midnight” for best adapted screenplay, though Sundance indeed proved mighty in the documentary feature category, with four of five (save “Act of Killing”) nominees screening in Park City.

So is this year’s lineup heading for a Oscar comeback? It’s obviously way...