Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed “The Trial of the Chicago 7” for Netflix, appearing they say in theaters and then on the platform. Cast includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, John Carroll Lynch, Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong, Noah Robbins, Danny Flaherty, Ben Shenkman, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Caitlin Fitzgerald, Alice Kremelberg, John Doman, J.C. MacKenzie, Damien Young, Wayne Duvall, C.J. Wilson.

Looking forward to this one. That’s for sure!

PS this movie has a record breaking THIRTY THREE producers. Most invested money, Marc Platt and Stuart Besser actually produced it. But 33 people with producer credits.

Netflix is spending like a drunken sailor at the various film festivals this weekend.

They plunked down $30 million for a movie called “Malcolm and Marie” starring John David Washington and Zendaya. Sam Levinson, creator and director of HBO’s “Euphoria” and son of director Barry Levinson, is the director.

Netflix spent $20 million on Halle Berry’s “Bruised,” starring and directed by the Oscar winning actress as a mixed martial arts fighter.

The media platform also shelled out some dough on “Pieces of a Woman” starring Shia LaBeouf and Vanessa Kirby as a couple that undergoes a terrible tragedy. It’s from Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó.

Netflix wants to be in the Oscar race, and they’re willing to open their coffers to get there. Will it work? It will be hard to beat “Nomadland,” that’s for sure. But Netflix is relentless. I haven’t head seen two of the films but “Pieces of a Woman” may be too intense for most audiences in theaters. In this case, home viewing is perhaps more advisable. One thing Netflix will get out of it is many awards nominations for Ellen Burstyn.

“Malcolm & Marie” stars Washington as a filmmaker and Zendaya as his girlfriend, following them after they return home from a movie premiere. It was shot this summer in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It also seems to be in black and white.

Stay tuned…

After a week of not releasing numbers, Warner Bros. has finally coughed up a couple for “Tenet.”

The Christopher Nolan time adventure, which cost at least $200 million to make, has earned $29 million in two weeks at US theaters.

Of that, $6.7 million was earned in its second week. It’s not a total bust, but it ain’t great.

Worldwide including the US, “Tenet” has $207 million in the bank. So it’s just $250 million away from breaking even. That might take some time travel and magic and all the things Nolan is known for.

The two and half hour movie has confused and confounded audiences who’ve had to read explanations on line after they see the film. Even then, it’s a headscratcher.

But I really liked it and hope to see it again one day, armed with a codebook and manual.

Meantime, if you’re in Southampton, Long Island, on Main Street, do not go into the store called Tenet and ask them if they know what the movie is about. I tried this and wound up in the Hamptons from the 1990s. You don’t want to go there.

I’m the first to tell you I am out of my depth writing about trans anything, gender fluid issues. I’m respectful of all the different aspects, but it’s not an area of expertise.

Last night I clicked on a film called “A Good Man” on the TIFF Digital press site. I thought it was a new Anthony Hopkins film because of a press release I’d received several times concerning Sir Anthony and the word “Good” in the title.

What I got was a French film that seemed to be about a young, attractive heterosexual couple in Provence. He was a doctor, she was a teacher. They’d moved to a house by the seaside, they told his brother on a visit, because it was easier than living in the city of Aix in Provence. (I thought, really? I’d love to live in Aix.)

The couple had a sex scene, mostly clothed. I remained clueless. It took a while before it dawned on me that something else was happening. But when the couple went to see their ob/gyn about having children, duh! I got it: the husband announced he would carry the child.

I immediately went to the imdb to see what was going on. (The TIFF site purposely gives little information about the plot and the actors.) There was little information except that Benjamin, the husband, was played by Noemie Merlant, the star of last year’s hit, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Benjamin’s girlfriend was played by someone named Soko. Because Benjamin had a closely trimmed beard that certainly looked real to me, it still took me few a synapses to put the puzzle together. I’m slow, but I finally got the whole thing.

I don’t know what trans people will say about “A Good Man,” but I found it extraordinarily moving. The lead actresses do as good work as I’ve ever seen. I would say they are Oscar material, without a doubt. Merlant is mind blowing in conveying — especially to a viewer as clueless as me — textures of emotion both male and female. The director-writer Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar and her co-writer Christian Sonderegger should be commended on all levels for peeling back this story like an onion. The more layers come off, the more absorbed you become. Who is the mother? The father? The husband? The wife? (There’s one great moment when Soko returns from shopping for a small crib only to find that Benjamin has made one. She is stunned: what place is there for her in this arrangement?)

I don’t know how they paid for “A Good Man” — there’s one production company listed, and it’s theirs. This is a very indie film. I do hope Sony Pictures Classics take a look at it, and France considers it as their Oscar entry. Merlant, again, is superb. I don’t know if a movie has ever covered this subject. I’ve never seen one like it. Bravo!

By the way, “A Good Man” was announced as a selection of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival that didn’t happen. It just shows that Thierry Fremaux and his staff have excellent taste. If this had played in Cannes it would have been the talk of the Croisette.