Cyclone: Philip Yung’s transgender drama is bold, lyrical and divisive - South China Morning Post

Digger is not exactly bringing audiences to the cinema, but it’s certainly inciting conversation amongst those who’ve seen it. Despite its poor performance at the box office, the ranks of Digger fans continue to grow and now include the creator of Metal Gear. Hideo Kojima praised the film for how it tackles its themes and ideas and, in a conversation with its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, even compared the film’s narrative to his own game Metal Gear Solid 2. After calling Digger “a film that all of us living in today’s world should see” on his social media accounts, Kojima expanded on why he felt that way in an interview with Iñárritu for Gizmodo Japan. The film, which dives deep into climate catastrophe and misinformation in the form of both comedy and intense drama, drew comparisons to movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove and Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator in how it forces audiences to examine the current state of the world by abstracting it into absurdist satire. “It’s not a story where meteorites fall from the sky or aliens attack, instead capturing things that are actually happening in reality,” Kojima says of the film.

Marvel Studios’ release of Avengers: Endgame: Encore was a shrewd gambit for a few reasons: It put the studio’s most successful film back in conversation right after the juggernaut success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day; it tided die-hards over with new footage ahead of December’s Avengers: Doomsday; and, perhaps most importantly, it raked in an additional $138 million for the film, reinstating its position as the worldwide box office champion over James Cameron’s Avatar. Cameron, who certainly doesn’t spend his precious time fretting about such matters as lifetime financial grosses and being the best in the world at stuff, recently expressed his congratulations to Marvel for once again overtaking his 2009 sci-fi film. “You are one of the people,” the director wrote (per The Wrap) in a composite image from Avatar, with Iron Man at the center of a welcoming Na’vi tribe. “Congratulations to Marvel and the #1 Avengers: Endgame: Encore for bringing moviegoers to the cinemas! – Jim Cameron.”