If there is one industry union that has taste, style, and, yes, a sense of humor, it’s the Costume Designers Guild. For example, with this year’s 2021 Costume Design Guild Awards they nominated such worth films as “Promising Young Woman,” “Birds of Prey,” “Emma” and “Judas and the Black Messiah.” Oh, and how could we forget, the indomitable “Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar.”

READ MORE: SAG Awards wisely going to a taped one-hour special

The CDG breaks out film nominees into three categories and television into four which allows them to honor a swath of deserving nominees.

Continue reading ‘Barb And Star,’ ‘Emma’ & ‘I May Destroy You’ Earn Costume Design Guild Awards Noms at The Playlist.

Though certain segments of social media might disagree, it’s always a good thing when there are more inclusivity and diversity in the film industry. This is just a fact. More perspectives mean more stories and more interesting films. And thankfully, as a new study points out, in terms of female representation behind the camera, the film industry continues to gain more inclusivity.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2020

A new study from San Diego State University claims that the total number of female directors and female filmmakers (in general) grew in 2020 from previous highs in 2019.

Continue reading Female Directors Helmed More Major Films Than Ever Before In 2020 at The Playlist.

Like most movies slated for release in 2020, “Emma” hit an unforeseen wall as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. The film, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy, had a limited theatrical release in late February, expanded over the next two weekends, and was doing well – until movie theaters across the country closed down. But then, with the film’s potential audience self-quarantined at home, an unexpected thing happened: fans started begging on Twitter for the movie to be released online.

Continue reading Anya Taylor-Joy Talks ‘Emma,’ Working With Director Autumn De Wilde & More [Interview] at The Playlist.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

Two more early-quarantine, pulled-from-theaters titles get their proper disc and VOD releases, and both are worth a watch from those who were saving their pennies for a more reasonable price point.

Continue reading The 5 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Emma,’ ‘The Way Back’ & More at The Playlist.

Jane Austen’s classic novel, “Emma,” has been adapted in various films and TV series over the decades. And when you have source material that has been mined as much as Austen’s story, you would think there’s not much room for surprises. Yet, Autumn de Wilde’s recent film, “Emma,” follows the period setting and plot of Austen’s novel while also providing a refreshing new take on the 205-year-old story.

Continue reading ‘Emma’ Exclusive: Watch A Deleted Scene From Autumn De Wilde’s Acclaimed Jane Austen Adaptation at The Playlist.

Movie theaters in the two top markets in the country, New York and Los Angeles, are effectively closed and tens of millions of people are staying home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Looking to minimize the economic impact and give moviegoers more options, Comcast and Universal Studios announced today that a number of films currently in theaters including “The Invisible Man,” “Emma” and “The Hunt” will be available for rental online beginning this Friday, March 20.

Continue reading ‘Invisible Man,’ ‘Emma’ & ‘Trolls: World Tour’ Coming To Digital & VOD Fast at The Playlist.

As far as the world’s population goes, coronavirus has been on people’s minds for weeks now. But over the last two weeks, in particular, it’s felt that the outbreak of the illness has gained more headlines in the world of film and TV due to cancellations of festivals (RIP SXSW) and the threat of cinemas shutting down around the world (obviously, this has already happened en masse in China). So, with the debut of Pixar’s “Onward,” the first major worldwide tentpole debut since coronavirus has really become headline news, how would the illness affect the box office?

Continue reading ‘Onward’ Stalls At The Box Office But Coronavirus Probably Isn’t To Blame at The Playlist.

2020 finally has its first horror hit. Thanks to “The Invisible Man,” the drought of terrible horror films at the box office has ended and in pretty startling fashion.

According to estimates, Blumhouse has quickly rebounded from the recent “Fantasy Island” disappointment (though it still is in the top 10, barely, giving the production company two films in the list) to land itself a solid hit with Universal’s “The Invisible Man.” After three days, the Elisabeth Moss-starring film has pulled in $29 million.

Continue reading ‘The Invisible Man’ Gives 2020 Its First Horror Hit With $29M Opening [Box Office] at The Playlist.

In a tight race, it appears that the blue hedgehog outran a CGI dog for the box office crown this weekend, as “Sonic the Hedgehog” repeats as #1 ahead of “The Call of the Wild.”

Coming into this weekend, many were expecting last weekend’s champ, ‘Sonic,’ to easily run away from the new competition this frame and take home the #1 spot. With films like “Call of the Wild” (with its lackluster marketing) and “Brahms: The Boy II” (the sequel no one asked for) debuting, it was assumed that the blue hedgehog would dominate once again.

Continue reading ‘Sonic’ Outruns ‘Call Of The Wild’ & A Creepy Doll For Another Box Office Win at The Playlist.

Jane Austen never thought her books would be popular. She certainly didn’t expect any of her stories to spawn cinematic adaptations (because of course, movies didn’t exist at that time. There are different versions of the film: Gwyneth Paltrow stars in the 1996 adaptation, Romola Garai is ‘Emma’ in the 2009 TV mini-series, and there is Amy Heckerling’s 1995 film ‘Clueless,’ which is heavily inspired by the Jane Austen novel.

Continue reading Anya Taylor-Joy Talks ‘Emma’ & Being A Jane Austen Antihero [Interview] at The Playlist.

“Emma,” the first straightforward film adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic text since Douglas McGrath’s 1995 take, is arduously faithful to the text in all respects but one: The most romantic scene is interrupted by a nosebleed. This is the perfect distillment of Autumn de Wilde’s prim and winking “Emma,” a film as technicolor-lush as Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” and as subversively fanatic about its source material as Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.” With winsome performances, eye-popping art direction, and witty repartee, de Wilde’s adaptation is, like its protagonist, “handsome, clever, and rich.”

Twenty-five years after Gwenyth Paltrow played Emma Woodhouse, Anya Taylor-Joy has taken on the famous meddler’s bonnet.

Continue reading ‘Emma’ Is A Clever, Frothy Take On A Jane Austen Classic [Review] at The Playlist.

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival has come to a close, the upcoming Oscars are either going to leave us uniformly happy (if “Parasite” wins and makes history) or enrage us (please, no surprise “Joker” Best Picture win), and then we’ll have a mild break before the Berlin Film Festival and SXSW adds to our “must-see” lists. It’s nice to take the very brief down period amidst the Oscar buzz and such to either play catch up or to see films that might not normally be on your immediate list—especially in a month like February, where there are more than usual offerings for films directed by women, ones that range the spectrum from superhero fare to romance and thrillers. 

Continue reading 9 Films To Watch In February: ‘Birds Of Prey,’ ‘Portrait Of A Lady,’ ‘Invisible Man’ & More at The Playlist.

Academy snubs be damned, 2019 was a spectacular end to a decade of outstanding films directed by women. Joanna Hogg reinvented visual memoir with “The Souvenir,” Lulu Wang challenged American conceptions of family and death in “The Farewell,” and Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” adaptation upended one of the most iconic American novels by and about a woman.

Continue reading 52 Films Directed By Women To Watch In 2020 at The Playlist.

Jane Austen left an indelible impact on not just feminist literature but on the movement itself. One example is Elizabeth Bennet’s disregard for decorum as she traipses through the muck to check on her sister Jane in “Pride and Prejudice.” Living in the era of #MeToo and Time’s Up lends a great deal of gravitas to a seemingly simple act written about more than 200 years ago. Keira Knightley portrayed the headstrong Austen character in 2005, and Anya Taylor-Joy stars as another in the coming year’s “Emma.”

Autumn de Wilde—most well-known for photographing such musical acts as The Raconteurs, The White Stripes, and Beck—makes her feature film directorial debut with the project.

Continue reading ‘Emma’ Trailer: Anya Taylor-Joy Brings The Titular Jane Austen Protagonist To Life at The Playlist.

It was the final book that was published while Jane Austen was alive back in 1815, and now over 200 years later, we receive yet another version of “Emma” adapted for the big screen (you may remember the 90s version with a young Gwyneth Paltrow). The film is directed by photographer-turned-filmmaker Autumn de Wilde, in what will be her feature-length directorial debut. She has previously worked on short films, including “The Postman Dreams” for Prada, as well as music videos for artists such as Elliott Smith, Jenny Lewis, Spoon, Florence + The Machine.de Wilde is also known for her indie-rock photography, gracing the pages of SPIN and Rolling Stone often, while helping shape the visual photographic identity of artists like Elliott Smith and Beck among many others.

Continue reading ‘Emma’ Trailer: Anya Taylor-Joy Is The Titular Character In Jane Austen’s Beloved Comedy at The Playlist.

Ever since her breakout role in “The Witch,” Anya Taylor-Joy has really come into her own as an actress in films like “Split” (less so in “Glass,” but that has little to do with her acting) and “Thoroughbreds.” Now, she finds herself with plenty of opportunities, and Taylor-Joy seems to be making all the right choices.

THR is reporting that the young actress is teaming up with the mastermind behind the Netflix series “Godless,” Scott Frank, for a new limited series on the streaming service titled “The Queen’s Gambit.” The series, based on the novel of the same name by author Walter Tevis, follows Beth Harmon, a young woman coming-of-age and experiencing life’s hardships on her quest to become the world’s best chess player.

Continue reading Anya Taylor-Joy To Star In A New Netflix Series From The Creator Of ‘Godless’ & Also In A New Adaptation Of ‘Emma’ at The Playlist.

According to Variety, the prissy British teacups setting will be moved to an inner-city high school, revolving around a stepbrother and stepsister (Wait, we don’t remember step-sibling in the original).

Continue reading Jane Austen Goes Hip-Hop With Street ‘Emma’ Adaptation at The Playlist.