Industry

You may think that at age 93 you’ll want to slow down, take it easy and enjoy the fruits of your lifelong labors. Then again you may not be the genius mastermind behind the stories, which birthed a whole genre and changed the face of comics, movies and popular culture.

Actor-director-screenwriter-producer Rebecca Miller, daughter of acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller, wrote and directed Maggie’s Plan a “modern comedy in the template of classic screwball” as she told the HFPA. Golden Globe nominated Greta Gerwig plays the titular single Manhattanite who falls for and eventually pries John (Ethan Hawke) from his wife, Georgette (Julianne Moore).

Love & Friendship, Whit Stillman’s free adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Lady Susan, has been widely praised on the festival circuit as a witty and original version that infuses the text with contemporary sensibilities. The novel, which was written by Austen in the form of letter correspondence, is transposed as a narrative with Kate Beckinsale as the titular heroine.

Over the years Nordic Noir has given us The Killing, The Bridge and of course The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Scandinavian crime thrillers have introduced a dark, brooding quality to the genre that has captivated audiences worldwide, both in the original versions and in the English adaptations.

Comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have been garnering a cult following for years, first at Chicago’s famed comedy troupe Second City, then as part of the Mad TV ensemble and for the past five years with their own Comedy Central show, Key & Peele. Coming of age in the Obama era, the bi-racial comedians have come to embody the cultural zeitgeist of “post-racial” America with uproarious sketches in which they turn cultural and ethnic stereotypes on their ear.

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria has penned intimate and sweet comedies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, which she also directed. She applies her sensibility for the funny and familiar nuances of our times to The Meddler in which Susan Sarandon plays Marnie, a middle aged, newly widowed mother of adult daughter Lori (Rose Byrne).

Two years ago Gina Rodriguez’s bright charisma and irrepressible energy won her accolades and a shiny Best Actress Golden Globe as the star of Jane the Virgin, Jennie Snyder Urman’s comedy-telenovela. Down to earth and with one of Hollywood’s brightest smiles, Gina has not stopped making true believers of fans and critics since.

This season is shaping up as heavily loaded with musical biopics. Marc Abraham’s I Saw The Light with Tom Hiddleston as seminal country crooner Hank Williams, Robert Budreau’s Born to Be Blue forlorn jazzman Chet Baker with Ethan Hawke in the title role and Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead on jazz trumpeter and iconoclast Miles Davis, amount to an alignment of musical planets to please any fan and that make the music biography this Spring’s dominant trend.

Jazz musicians are in season right now – next week Don Cheadle is coming out with his passion project Miles Ahead, a Miles Davis biopic in which he’s both actor and director.   And right now Canadian director Robert Budreau offers us what he calls “an anti-biography” of another jazz legend, Chet Baker – Born To Be Blue.

When My Big Fat Greek Wedding burst on the scene 13 years ago it became one of the biggest grossing comedies of all time, garnering Golden Globe nominations as Best Comedy or Musical as well as for the young woman who penned and starred in it as Toula Potokalos, an endearingly awkward Chicagoan of Greek descent who fell for and, yes, married “gentile” John Corbett while having to overcome the skepticism of her loud and lovable Greek family. Given the film’s success, there was immediate buzz about a sequel but somehow it never came … until now.