Higher Ground, the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, has struck its latest audio deal with the podcasting platform Acast.
Acast will handle ad sales and distribution for Higher Ground’s library of podcasts, which includes The Big Hit Show with Alex Pappademas, Renegades: Born in the USA with President Obama and Bruce Springsteen and The Sum of Us with Heather McGhee. The pact with Acast is separate from Higher Ground’s multiyear first-look deal with Audible, which began last June after the production company parted ways with Spotify. The first project from the Higher Ground–Audible partnership, Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast, was released in March; new episodes of The Light Podcast will have an exclusive two-week window on Audible before being released widely on all major platforms by Acast.
On the advertising and sponsorship side, marketers will be able to use Acast’s ad placement technology on select shows like Renegades, The Sum of Us and The Big Hit Show, as well as upcoming programming from Higher Ground. Acast’s in-house ad creative team will also be able to work with sponsors to create specific sponsorships, such as branded miniseries, for Higher Ground’s podcasts.
“We’ve been deeply impressed by the creativity and innovation of the Acast team,” Dan Fierman, the head of audio at Higher Ground, said in a statement. “We are excited to work with their team to bring our growing slate of audio content to existing fans and new audiences.”
“Higher Ground continues to deliver among the most engaging and high-caliber audio content in the industry, and we look forward to teaming up with them to make vital storytelling available to communities all over the globe,” Acast CEO Ross Adams said. “This relationship marks an exciting new chapter not only for Acast, but for the audio industry at large, as we work hand-in-hand to make the world a more connected place.”
Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen has been cast as Grand Admiral Thrawn, the protagonist in the upcoming live-action “Star Wars” series “Ahsoka,” reprising the role he voiced in “Star Wars Rebels.” His casting was announced during the Star Wars Celebration event in London on Saturday.
Thrawn first appeared in the 1991 Timothy Zahn novel “Heir to the Empire” and made his on-screen appearance in the animated series “Star Wars Rebels.”
His live-action character is name-dropped by Moff Gideon in the upcoming seventh episode of “The Mandalorian” Season 3, who notes the Grand Admiral is missing from vital Empire discussions. It seems that status will change very soon.
During Saturday’s panel, “Ahsoka” showrunner Dave Filoni described the blue-screened Empire officer as a “Moriarty”-type foe.
Rosario Dawson will reprise her live-action role from “The Mandalorian” and “The Book of Boba Fett.”
Hayden Christensen will play Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka’s former Jedi Master. Natasha Liu Bordizzo will portray Sabine Wren and Mary Elizabeth Winstead will play Hera Syndulla.
“Ahsoka” is slated to premiere on Disney+ in August.
Bailey, who played young Lilly on The Fighting Temptations, shared what is was like working with Beyoncé as a kid
Chlöe Bailey, who has taken the Tonight Show stage several times as a musical guest, sat down with Jimmy Fallon on Friday night. The “Pray It Away” singer talked friendly sibling rivalry with her sister Halle, working with Beyoncé on the set of The Fighting Temptations, and her upcoming debut solo album, In Pieces.
Fallon shared a photo of Bailey and Beyoncé taken 20 years ago on the set of the comedy film, where she played the younger Lily. “She was so nice to me and even at the wrap party she’d hold me, and we’d dance the night away,” the artist recalled. Bailey, who credited the Beyoncé as one of the major influences in her career, added, “That was the moment my love really began for her because she was so kind to little Chloe.”
Trending
Bailey has since built her musical identity outside of Chlöe x Halle, the R&B duo she forms with her younger sister. This spring, she is set to hit the road for the “In Pieces Tour” supporting her debut solo album of the same name. The 11-date stretch of shows marks her first headlining tour performances as a solo artist.
When speaking to Rolling Stone about the biggest risk she took on making her record, Bailey said opened up about overcoming doubts. “There were so many people in my life — I’m not talking about online internet trolls, but people I was close to — who told me I couldn’t do this. Who said I wouldn’t be good enough to do this on my own,” she said. “That was scary as shit actually doing it, because there were times where I believed them. I believed the negative things being told to me. I just had to keep trusting myself, and it’s still hard even now to try to not doubt myself and talk myself out of the blessings that I’m receiving.”
Allu Arjun will be next seen in Pushpa: The Rule, the first look of which was released on the eve of Telugu Superstar’s 41st birthday. (Image: Twitter)
It was just a day ago that Allu Arjun shared his first-look poster of Pushpa: The Rule in which he was seen dressed in a saree.
Allu Arjun is undoubtedly one of the biggest stars in the country. The actor has carved a niche for himself with such a long career. Today, he is celebrating his birthday and has been trending on social media after he recently released the poster of his upcoming much-awaited film, Pushpa 2, the second installment of Pushpa: The Rise. The film was loved globally and received rave reviews from critics and fans. However, it is now learned that Allu Arjun has hiked his feel for Pushpa 2 and is charging double the amount he charged for the first part of the Sukumar directorial.
As reported by The Times of India, the actor charged Rs 45 crore for Pushpa: The Rise which also starred Rashmika Mandanna in the lead role. And for the sequel, he is charging a whopping amount of Rs 85 crores. “Arjun’s fee for the Pushpa sequel is around Rs 85 crores which is a new record in the Telugu film industry,” a source cited by the news portal claimed.
“Arjun’s equation with the box office has changed after Pushpa. Though Pushpa: The Rise was not such a grand hit in Andhra and Telangana, its pan-India success places him above Prabhas in the all-India market,” another source added. It has also been reported that the film’s director Sukumar has also hiked his fee for Pushpa 2. However, there is no official confirmation to this so far.
Meanwhile, it was just a day ago that Allu Arjun shared his first-look poster of Pushpa: The Rule in which he was seen dressed in a saree with his face painted in shades of blue and red. He also sported bangles, jewellery, a nose pin and jhumkas. Captioning the poster, Allu Arjun wrote, “Pushpa 2 the rule begins.”
Written and directed by Sukumar, Pushpa: The Rise was released in 2021. It depicted the rise of a coolie in the smuggling syndicate of red sandalwood. Besides Allu Arjun, the film also starred Rashmika Mandanna in the lead. Sai Pallavi has also reportedly joined Pushpa 2. The song Oo Antava Oo Oo Antava, Srivalli, and Saami Saami are still among the hits.
Last month, E-Times reported that Pushpa director Sukumar has decided to include ‘one major Bollywood A-lister preferably one of the Khans or Ajay Devgn, if not somebody else’ for Pushpa 2. However, there is no official announcement regarding this so far.
Lars Mikkelsen is set to play the longstanding “Star Wars” villain on the upcoming Disney+ series “Ahsoka,” Lucasfilm announced on Saturday as part of the Star Wars Celebration fan convention in London. Mikkelsen also joined the cast of “Ahsoka” onstage at the end of the panel.
Thrawn was originally created by author Timothy Zahn as part of a series of Star Wars novels released in the 1990s that covered the events following 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.” In those books, Thrawn was a cunning and ruthless Grand Admiral in the Empire who takes control of what’s left of the Imperial fleet and mounts a counter-offensive to take down the New Republic.
With his ice blue skin and crimson red eyes, Thrawn quickly became a favorite among hardcore Star Wars fans. But after Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, Zahn’s novels — and Thrawn’s role in them — were removed from Star Wars canon and rebranded as “Star Wars Legends,” in order to make room for the sequel film trilogy starting with 2015’s “The Force Awakens.”
The character, however, didn’t die. George Lucas protege Dave Filoni resurrected the character in 2016 for the animated series “Star Wars: Rebels,” maintaining a great deal of Thrawn’s biography and backstory. Lars Mikkelsen (“House of Cards”) voiced Thrawn in the series, which takes place in the events between “Revenge of the Sith” and “A New Hope.”
The prospect of the character stepping into live action was first suggested in Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” in the episode that first introduced Rosario Dawson as the Jedi warrior Ahsoka Tano, one of the lead characters from Filoni’s “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated TV series. In that episode, Ahsoka demands another character tell her where to find Thrawn, though the answer was never revealed.
Seeing the Avengers and Justice League come together on the big screen has long been a dream for many. There is even comic precedent for a potential crossover thanks to the early 2000s JLA/Avengers comic event.
James Gunn Explains Marvel & DC Crossover Possibility
The Direct
Speaking with Fandango during the press tour for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, newly-placed DC Studios CEO James Gunn gave his thoughts on Marvel and DC potentially crossing over, having now worked on both sides of the coin.
Gunn noted how “there’s always the possibility” for that to happen, but the focus right now is on making each of the respective universes “as strong as possible:”
“I think there’s always the possibility of that. I think that would be a fun thing for fans to see. But I do think it’s just about grounding the Marvel and DC universes right now and trying to make them each as strong as possible.”
The DC Studios boss added how he is “very close friends” and “[talks] all the time” with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. He also explained how, while there is “some rivalry” between the superhero companies, they both have the same goal to “embolden the movie-going experience:”
“I think that the crossover I like is that [Kevin Feige] and I are very close friends. So, we talk all the time. I think that the idea of a rivalry between Marvel and DC, of course, there’s always going to be some rivalry. But what’s really important to me is that we embolden the movie-going experience. And the theater-going experience is something that survives on big spectacle movies today.”
Gunn noted how “a dollar for Marvel is not a dollar less for DC,” and both sides making good superhero movies only brings more audiences to the theaters and serves to benefit both sides:
“So, if we’re really going to allow it to thrive that means we want good movies to be made, and that’s going to happen with Marvel movies and DC. And contrary to popular belief, a dollar for Marvel is not a dollar less for DC, quite the opposite. You make good Marvel movies, it brings people to theaters, and they go see more good DC movies. You make good DC movies, it brings them to the theater, and they go see good Marvel movies.”
“I’ve casually talked to the powers-that-be at both Marvel & DC about it. I would love for it to happen. I don’t think it’s likely, but I don’t think it’s an impossibility either.”
The superhero veteran filmmaker even revealed his dream pitch for a Marvel and DC crossover which involves both his Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad franchises coming together through “a Harley Quinn and Groot movie:”
“I would really be happy to do a Harley Quinn and Groot movie, that would be exciting for me. Not only have I thought about that, but I’ve actually talked about that to the heads of both Marvel and DC. They know everybody’s open to everything, but whether anything would ever happen, who knows?”
Could Marvel & DC Ever Actually Crossover?
The Direct
With the Marvel rights held firmly at Disney and the DC rights over at Warner Bros., the superhero giants ever crossing over is almost impossible. After all, the number of negotiations required to navigate the rights and financial issues would be immense, not to mention the logistics of which side actually makes the movie.
James Gunn’s recent appointment at DC Studios certainly makes it more of a possibility to get the two sides talking at some point given his close relationship with Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige. But right now, both Marvel and DC are firmly focused on bettering their own universes and generally doing their own thing.
Perhaps if the superhero genre as a whole ever began to die off then Marvel and DC could come to the negotiating table. But even after the recent struggles of Ant-Man 3and the financial disaster of Shazam 2, the genre remains alive and well with plenty of excitement for the future of both franchises.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on Friday, May 5. James Gunn’s next superhero movie at DC will be Superman: Legacy, which releases on July 11, 2025.
Entertainment insider Jeff Sneider claimed on The Hot Mic podcast that The Authority will be the next DCU movie to premiere after Superman: Legacy. The film will reportedly release sometime in 2026.
This rumor is in line with the order on the slate image that was shown at the original DCU slate showcase, potentially indicating Sneider’s claim about The Authority‘s release order might be true.
During the DCU slate showcase, DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran revealed that The Authority is set to explore a team of “heroes” that uses extreme methods to protect the planet, with Safran describing them as “kinda like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men” while Gunn noting that he’s “really excited” to introduce them.
Meanwhile, a related scoop from insider KC Walsh claimed that Superman will fight the Authority in the DCU at some point in Chapter 1. This is interesting since both movies featuring the titular characters are rumored to premiere back to back in the rebooted slated.
Here are the DCU movies under the DC Studios banner:
Superman: Legacy
The Authority
Brave and the Bold
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
Swamp Thing
When Will the Authority Fight Superman?
It’s safe to assume that Superman will not show up yet in The Authority, meaning that the team will likely face an entirely different foe. It’s possible that the crossover between the two clashing figures could be further down the line, potentially in a separate unannounced project.
Giving the Authority its own movie first before going up against Superman would be fitting since it allows the characters to be fleshed out more.
Moreover, it will also give fans an opportunity to learn about the characters, their motivations, and their tactics, before the conflict against the Man of Steel.
Considering that the Authority has some unusual tactics in protecting Earth, the whole movie presents an opportunity to explain to the viewers why they utilize these methods in the first place.
As the team heads to their encounter with Superman, fans will understand the Authority’s motives and some would (potentially) even side with them.
The Authority is rumored to release sometime in 2026.
Joseph Staten, the Halo veteran brought on board by Microsoft to creatively direct Halo Infinite, has left after nine years at the company.
IGN first broke the news, with Staten confirming his departure on Twitter. Staten thanked his colleagues at Xbox and did not reveal where he’s heading next.
Hey folks, I am indeed leaving Microsoft. I’ll have more info to share soon, but for now, I’d just like to thank all my @Xbox colleagues for all their understanding and support as I embark on a new adventure. https://t.co/oMR0LXOzZb
“We’re grateful for Joseph’s contributions to the Halo franchise and Xbox as a whole,” Xbox said of Staten’s exit to IGN. “We wish him all the best in his new adventure.”
Staten worked on the first three Halo games at Bungie, and left Bungie for Microsoft in 2014. He served as senior creative director for Xbox publishing, and in 2020, joined 343 Industries to help develop Halo Infinite. The hiring announcement said that Staten would be “focused on supporting the campaign team’s existing, talented, creative leaders and ensuring they have everything they need to create an awesome Halo game.”
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Editors note:This review was originally published May 27 after its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.The film opens in limited release Friday.
Kelly Reichardt has been making minimal Americana since the early 1990s, mostly around the state of Oregon where she lives and mostly about her favored awkward squad: quiet square pegs who don’t quite fit the round holes society provides. In this ongoing quest she has found many collaborators, but none more attuned to her recessive brand of naturalism than Michelle Williams.
As a homeless woman trying to find her stolen dog in Wendy and Lucy, as part of a wagon train heading west in the counter-Western Meek’s Cutoff, and as half of a married couple trying to build their dubious “dream home” in Certain Women, Williams lets her performances ripple almost imperceptibly towards us, which is very much the Reichardt way. Each character’s drama, if you could call it that, lies under the surface.
In Reichardt’s latest, Showing Up, running in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Williams plays Lizzy, a middle-aged ceramic artist who makes rent by working in the office at an arts and crafts school. Her daily life is a tangle of uneasily blurred boundaries. Her father is a potter, now retired, whose reputation precedes her; her mother manages the office where she works, which can make staff relations prickly; her brother is a conspiracy theorist her mother expects her to concede is the genius in the family, but who is more or less under her care. She keeps her housing costs down by renting a flat in a duplex owned by another artist, Joelle, who lives next door and is both landlady, colleague and ostensible pal.
It’s another thorny combination, especially since Lizzy’s hot-water service has packed up and Joelle is signally failing to get it fixed. “I told you: you can shower at my place!” says extroverted Joelle, but Lizzy would probably rather wash in a bowl for the rest of her life than waltz into Joelle’s bathroom in a towel. She puts up with it, of course, because making art is her priority.
She has an exhibition within the week that could be noticed – could change her life – and a squadron of pottery figurines to get glazed and fired. The job gives her time to get her real work done, while Joelle’s garage provides space. It is easy to spot a parallel with Reichardt’s own career, making the shoestring films that have established her as a major American filmmaker while earning her living teaching college students. It’s all about showing up, on all fronts.
It is possible to watch Williams as Lizzy clomping round her apartment in her socks and frumpy skirts and think she is doing next to nothing, at least in terms of performance. Reichardt’s characters register emotional shifts almost barometrically, as changes in air pressure. Lizzy is not a talker. When someone else at the arts center tries to draw her out at lunch, she doesn’t quite tell her to back off, but she curls her body around the sandwich she’s eating as if to ward her away.
When she leaves Joelle a shouty message about how furious she is about her continued lack of hot water, her anger feels staged; Joelle certainly doesn’t take it seriously. It is in her stony insistence on using the shower in unlikely places – at the gallery where her work is being shown, for example – that you really feel her accumulated resentment.
That and the business of the pigeon, a perfectly ordinary bird that Joelle finds after it has been mauled half to death by Lizzy’s errant cat. Joelle puts the pigeon in a box, declaring that she will nurse it back to health, then parks it with Lizzy who is too embarrassed by her cat’s bad behavior to refuse. The pigeon ends up going everywhere with one or other of them; it lives in the studio, goes to galleries, to the vet – much to the vet’s surprise – and back and forth between their apartments, a living monument to the muddle of roles, responsibilities and resentments common to everyone’s lives, but especially to the lives of women trying to carve out the space to make creative work.
There is a good deal of tedium to all this, underlined by a maddeningly repetitive score. Where Meek’s Cut-off and First Cow, Reichardt’s last film, were counterpoints to the Western genre that embraced epic themes, shootings and a wagon falling off a cliff, Showing Up is about endless, tiny acts of persistence. Very little happens.
Lizzy establishes her working space by closing herself off from others, including us. She doesn’t want our company. It is only at the end of the film, as her exhibition opens and she is worrying over whether there is too much cheese on the snack plate, there may be a chink opening up in her armor. It’s not much, but for fans of Reichardt’s internalized cinema, it’s enough.
Title: Showing Up Studio: A24 Release date: April 7, 2023 (May 27, 2022 Cannes premiere) Director: Kelly Reichardt Screenwriters: Jon Raymond & Kelly Reichardt Cast: Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Maryann Plunkett, John Magaro, André Benjamin, James Le Gros, Judd Hirsch Rating: R Running time: 2 hr 7 mins
There was a time when Don Jr. might have referred to his sister as the “yummy dummy Demmy” of the family—which is how Kendall Roy described Shiv. This was the moderate, urbane image that garnered Ivanka caché in the Upper East Side social circles she used to inhabit. But as her father rose to power, Ivanka seemed more than willing to abandon her principles, whether earnest or pretended, to ensure her place at his right hand. Always the first woman in Trump’s orbit to defend him against accusations of misogyny; always on hand to pronounce the words, “my father” in a tone of warm reverence; always willing to adjust her positions and rhetoric to suit his whims, however misguided. Perhaps, as has been widely reported in The Washington Post, CNN, and elsewhere, Ivanka had hoped to parlay her father’s presidency into a political career of her own.
Unfortunately for her, Ivanka didn’t disentangle herself from her dad until her own reputation as a moderating influence and crusader for women’s empowerment, not to mention her moral compass, had been well and truly torched. Like, on a global scale.
Just like Shiv, who had already thrown everything away to earn Logan’s approval by the time she realized his sexist attitudes still applied to her. In episode two of season four, after she realizes Logan has advised Tom on the same dirty legal tricks to gain the upper hand in the divorce that Logan used against her own mother, Shiv exclaims, “I’ve been mommed.”
I don’t know when or if this has occurred to Ivanka, but I am reminded of a report in the New York Times that paints a pretty convincing picture of how some of her arguments with the former president went. According to the Times, after the infamous “grab ‘em by the pussy” audio was published, Ivanka pushed her dad to issue a full mea culpa. “As she spoke, Mr. Trump remained unyielding. His daughter’s eyes welled with tears, her face reddened, and she hurried out in frustration,” the article reads. Cut to 2020, when Trump is campaigning hard for a second term, and Ivanka Trump suddenly declares herself, “pro-life, and unapologetically so.”
And now, what? The damage is done. There’s still no clear path for either Shiv or Ivanka to claw their way back to where they started. Women can’t even win Faustian bargains with men like that.
Kathleen Walsh is a contributing writer at Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter@kath_walsh.
Alex is a Movie/TV News Editor & Film Critic at Screen Rant. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in English, he spent a locked-down year in Scotland completing a Master’s in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, which he hears is a nice, lively city. He now lives in and works from Milan, Italy, which he sometimes glimpses through his window while typing away from his apartment. His love for all things cinema can probably be traced back to watching the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring at four years old, though being raised on Pixar, Spielberg, and all manner of genre movies certainly couldn’t have hurt. Now that he’s discovered the joys of Buster Keaton, David Lynch, and Céline Sciamma, he doesn’t plan on ever giving up the dream of carrying a little review notebook from screening to screening and calling it a career.
Over the years, Hollywood – and society in general – has seen plenty of weight loss fads. The current one seems to be Ozempic, something that’s technically a drug for diabetics. And “Physical” star Rose Byrne has seen it go to proper use – but she also thinks the rising misuse of it is “a little disturbing.”
In the months since its release, Ozempic – which is technically meant to lower blood sugar and AC1 in order to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease – has become so popular as a weight loss drug that it even became a punchline for Jimmy Kimmel during this year’s Oscars ceremony.
During a recent appearance on the “UnWrapped” podcast, Byrne told hosts Emily Vogel and Andi Ortiz that, at least in her personal encounters with Ozempic, it’s “sort of run the gamut.”
“I have a friend who is pre-diabetic and she’s in her 50s and she started taking it’s changed her life for the better because it’s designed for someone who literally in her situation … her blood pressure has gone down, her sugar levels have evened out, all the things that she was really struggling with,” Byrne explained.
“But obviously, people seem to be you know, abusing it in a way that is really disturbing and also like, not knowing long term effects, and it feels very like a fad,” she added. “You know, like a health kind of beauty fad or quote unquote, beauty but you know, and a little a little disturbing.”
Tune into the full interview with Byrne on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
About “UnWrapped”
“UnWrapped” is a monthly podcast produced by WrapWomen, dedicated to empowering the next generation of women in media and entertainment. Each episode “unwraps” topics from entertainment news and industry trends to career advice, Hollywood headlines and more.
Special guests include industry leaders, actors, producers and studio execs. The aim of the series is to connect those looking for knowledge and access to those with the knowledge and access, providing the WrapWomen community tools to succeed in their personal and professional lives.
NOW ON NETFLIX! The road of excess leads to the palace of popcorn butter in director Jeremy Garelick’s sumptuous sequel Murder Mystery 2. The screenplay by series originator James Vanderbilt opens right where the first left off, with Nick (Adam Sandler) and Audrey (Jennifer Anniston) Spitz riding on the Orient Express. Instead of doing the obvious mystery on a train, the script wisely jumps ahead in time to where Nick Spitz has quit trying to pass his detective exam, and Audrey has quit her job as a beautician to work as a private detective team. Unfortunately, this venture is going miserably, with little income coming in, creating lots of tension between the couple.
Then the Maharajah (Adeel Akhtar), their old buddy from the first movie, calls them up to invite them to his wedding to his fiancé Claudette (Melanie Laurent) on a private island. Soon the Spitzes are overseas up to their necks in rich people. Good thing another old buddy from the first movie, Colonel Ulenga (John Kani), is there to help them navigate the waves of high society. Wedding guests include famous former soccer player and CEO Francisco (Enrique Arce), who has his sights set on Audrey, Nick be damned.
We also have Countess Sekou (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Imani (Zurin Villanueva) slinking around, disapproving of everything in sight. We also have the Maharajah’s sister Saira (Kuhoo Verma), getting a henna tattoo and reading a book. Meanwhile, Nick has discovered the most amazing appetizers to consume entire plates of ravishing cheese. Finally, however, something awful happens, and the Spitzes find themselves in the middle of another deadly ordeal. Can they help solve this caper, or will they once again end up being branded the prime suspects by the police and foreign press?
“Can they help solve this caper, or will they once again end up being branded the prime suspects…”
Back in 1999, when Sandler formed his film company Happy Madison, I wasn’t watching his movies as they weren’t Italian horror bootlegs. Nowadays, I consume Happy Madison movies like Happy Meals, as both are greasy and delicious and always come with a prize. I originally got hooked through that fabled production house’s other great sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. That leads to regular visits to seedy second-run theaters for the latest Sandler work, including the ill-fated final stretch before the Netflix deal. Yes, that means Jack and Jill in public, and I laughed my face off. Thank you very much. Sandler’s films’ quality has soared since he freed himself from the theaters. Works of genius like Sandy Wexler and The Week Of would never have been green-lighted in the constant pander-thon of theatrical distribution. Sandler has gone from guilty pleasure to acquitted pleasure.
Murder Mystery 2 is a pleasure indeed. The concoction of Agatha Christie elegance with Sandler’s teetering on the edge of taste humor is high-impact relaxation, like a warm bath for your frontal lobes. This is the same kind of “revenge of Generation X” escapism for older audiences that the John Wick movies trade-in. Like Wick, Sandler gives us a middle-aged power fantasy, except using faux pas instead of punches. There is endless joy sparked by seeing Sandler and Anniston inflict their working-class reactions to all the opulence. It is this perception that will give most viewers a feeling of film immersion, as this is the way most of them would behalf if stuck in the same movie. I know I would eat the curd out of that yummer yummer cheese. It revisits the elements that made the first film so fun while injecting enough development to feel like the second chapter for the Spitzes. My only quibble is veering so far away from the whodunit atmosphere into the territory of the Taken franchise.
It does strain the appropriateness of the title almost to the breaking point, but it holds. I was ready for further adventures with these two before I got to the cliffhanger ending, which sealed the deal for Spitz Chapter 3. So kick back and give your mind the night off with Murder Mystery 2.
A raging rooster turned on its owner during a cockfight in Mexico, leaving him with several deep gashes in his leg.
In a video of the attack, blood can be seen pouring onto the sand as staff flock to give the man medical assistance at the illegal cockfighting venue in the city of Villa de Álvarez.
The video shows two men clutching their birds in the pit as they face off and get them hyped up before the fight.
The roosters are placed on the ground yards apart as the event kicks off, but instead of fighting, one immediately turns against its owner and savages him.
The owner picks up his bird as its rival tries to fight it.
In the video, the rooster turns immediately on its owner at the start of the fight
The man was left with deep gashes in his leg. Afterwards, he was taken to a nearby hospital to receive stitches
Both birds are restrained as the man hobbles over to the entrance and passes his rooster on to someone else.
He stretches out his leg and receives treatment as blood gushes over the floor.
The footage also shows that the man has sustained injuries to his wrist, which he displays to staff members as they treat his leg with a cloth.
Blood can be seen spurting down his leg and onto his shoes, with deep cuts visible.
Someone else provides a blanket to try to control the bleeding as he lies on the floor writhing in agony in front of the concerned spectators.
A tourniquet is used to control the blood flow. The man, who is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, is then carried out of the venue.
The video shows the two competitors clutching their birds in the pit as they face off and get the birds hyped up for the fight. They are then placed on the ground yards apart
But one of the roosters shows no interest in fighting its rival and immediately turns against the owner and savages him
The owner picks up his bird as the other cock tries to fight it
Both birds are restrained as the man hobbles by the entrance and passes the bird over to someone else
One local resident commented: ‘That’s good, so now you feel what the poor little roosters feel’
Another posted: ‘Cockfights, dogfights, etc. To think there are still people who enjoy this. Barbarians’
A third wrote: ‘Excellent! Bravo for the rooster! It’s amazing these caveman ‘shows’ still continue’
Afterwards, he was taken to a nearby hospital to get stitches on his left leg.
One local resident commented: ‘That’s good, so now you feel what the poor little roosters feel.’
‘Cockfights, dogfights, etc. To think there are still people who enjoy this. Barbarians,’ wrote another.
A third user posted: ‘Excellent! Bravo for the rooster! It’s amazing these caveman ‘shows’ still continue.’
According to local reports, the venue has been operating illegally since 2021, when the authorities closed it down. It is unclear if the police plan to carry out an investigation into its apparent continued use.
The video shows the owner hobbling over to the other side of the venue
He passes the bird over so that he can receive treatment
Staff flock around him to help him with his injuries
He stretches out his leg as blood gushes all over the floor
His leg is put in a tourniquet to control the blood flow
The man is then carried out of the venue before being taken to a nearby hospital for stiches
In January, two men bled to death at cockfighting events in India after being sliced by knives attached to roosters.
One victim, Gande Suryapraksha Rao, was tying blades to the feet of his prized cockerel ahead of a fight in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, when the bird became spooked by the crowd, flew up and cut his leg.
The 43-year-old was taken to hospital but he was declared dead on arrival, The New Indian Express reported.
In a second incident, a 20-year-old spectator at an event in East Godavari was hit by a bird as he stood near the cockfighting pit. The blade attached to the bird cut his hand open, causing him to bleed profusely. He died on the way to hospital.
Within Andhra Pradesh, a state on India’s south-east coast, cockfighting is common, especially during Sankranti, an important day in the Hindu calendar.
Cockfighting is a tradition in the region, but many have made the sport more extreme by attaching blades to the feet of the birds.
Indian authorities made cockfighting illegal in 1960, with courts upholding the ban in 2016. In 2018, however, the Supreme Court gave the green light for cockfighting to be held in the traditional way, with the more extreme version still banned.
Police have tried to curtail the activity in previous years, but the events have garnered a lot of popular support, with hotels being booked well in advance within the Godvavari districts of Andhra Pradesh.
We’re confident in assuming that the iPhone 15 series is going to be launched in September, and while we wait for these handsets to be official, we’ve got some high-quality renders of the Pro model from a reliable source.
That source is 9to5Mac (opens in new tab), and the images that have been shared show off the iPhone 15 Pro from all angles – including from below, so we can see the new USB-C port that all the 2023 iPhones are rumored to be getting.
This is described as being a “significant upgrade”, with the iPhone 15 Pro set to be housed in a titanium casing with a design that has rounder edges than the iPhone 14 Pro. The camera bump is also bigger, with lenses that protrude further out.
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(Image credit: 9to5Mac)
(Image credit: 9to5Mac)
(Image credit: 9to5Mac)
Buttons and bezels
We also get a look at the new solid-state buttons for volume control, mute and power. According to previous rumors, these are going to replace the conventional mechanical buttons, providing haptic feedback in place of physical movement.
The bezels are said to be smaller too: 1.55 millimeters to be precise. The glass display will be subtlety curved at the edges as well, as per this leak, “transitioning seamlessly into the titanium frame of the device” around the frame.
As mentioned previously, 9to5Mac says there’s going to be a new deep red color for the iPhone 15 Pro, so look out for that. Finally, the dimensions of the phone are apparently slightly smaller than the 2022 model.
Analysis: a fine-looking iPhone
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but based on these pictures, we’d say the iPhone 15 Pro is shaping up to be one of the best-looking iPhones yet – and we’re assuming the other models in the range will be similar in their aesthetics.
We’ve always liked the more rounded look of iPhones past, rather than the straight and angular edges on the iPhone 14 and recent editions. We’re assuming that it’s going to make the smartphones feel better in the hand as well.
The switch to USB-C – under pressure from EU regulators – has long been talked about, and it should make finding a charger easier. However, you might need an Apple-approved cable to get the most out of the new-look port.
That new deep red color looks great too, and will be a welcome alternative to the usual silver and gray choices. As we’ve seen with the yellow iPhone 14, adding extra colors is an easy win for Apple, and we’d like to see even more of them down the line.
Paramount+ (née CBS All Access) has recently shot up as one of the streaming services with the most robust and up-to-date libraries full of hits, hidden gems and classics.
Featuring some of the best Paramount movies, and beloved TV shows from CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET and more, Paramount+ is the home of hit film franchises like “Scream” and “Mission: Impossible,” TV hits including “Star Trek” and Taylor Sheridan shows including “The Tulsa King” and “Yellowstone” spinoffs “1883” and “1923” (though, somewhat confusingly, you won’t find “Yellowstone” itself on there — that’s on Peacock).
Paramount’s movie list is particularly robust, so whether you’re wondering what’s new on Paramount+ or looking for the overall best movies you’ll find streaming there right now, we’ve got you covered with the 30 best movies on Paramount+ to watch right now. And for your streaming convenience, we’ve linked the titles directly so you can skip the scrolling and get to watching.
Paramount
If you’re looking to get caught up before the latest installment in the recently revived “Scream” franchise, you’ll have to head to Paramount+, where you’ll find all five of the previous movies streaming. From Wes Craven’s genre-redefining 1996 original to the 2022 reboot that made it a buzzy horror hit once again, “Scream” has endured as one of the most consistent — and consistently quotable — slasher franchises in movie history, from the unforgettable cold opens to the parade of iconic characters. — Haleigh Foutch
Paramount Pictures
Maligned by many upon release, Oscar-winning “La La Land” and “First Man” director Damien Chazelle’s old Hollywood-set “Babylon” seems destined to pick up a cult following. The sprawling, depraved epic is set in 1920s Hollywood and follows the trajectories of three main characters – Margot Robbie goes from unknown to vamp; Brad Pitt is an aging movie star with a bad drinking habit; and Diego Calva is an outsider who gets invited to the party. Talkies are on the horizon and everyone’s trying to figure out where Hollywood goes next, while still keeping the party alive. – Adam Chitwood
Paramount Pictures
One of last year’s biggest movies was also one of its best. “Top Gun: Maverick,” improbably a “Top Gun” sequel released 35 years after the original, follows Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), who still gets in trouble for hotdogging (this time in an experimental jet) and as a demotion of sorts gets sent back to the Top Gun academy where he made his name. There, he trains a new group of pilots, including Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of his fallen comrade Goose (Anthony Edwards), who died tragically in the first movie. Maverick has to get them ready for a potential suicide mission in enemy airspace. Even more harrowing: he’s got to figure out a way to connect with the son he never had.
Both a triumph of technical filmmaking prowess and emotional storytelling, “Top Gun: Maverick” is flawlessly directed by Joseph Kosinski from an Oscar-nominated script by Cruise’s frequent collaborator Christopher McQuarrie that mixes machismo and genuine heart. If, for some reason, you never saw “Top Gun: Maverick,” now’s the perfect time. And if you’ve already seen it, you’re probably anxious to watch it again. You are go for launch. – Drew Taylor
Paramount
“Top Gun: Maverick” alum Monica Barbaro stars in this film-within-a-film about Sophie Wilder, an actress in a superhero franchise. She heads to Mexico to film the final installment in the trilogy after finding out her costar/boyfriend was cheating on her. Once she arrives, she meets Alejandro (Diego Boneta), who manages the hotel where she stays, and their meet-cute (in which Alejandro walks in on Sophie naked in the shower), leads them to an awkward connection. Sophie dares Diego to go dancing at midnight and their chemistry picks up from there. Add this to your list of romantic comedies to stream. — Dessi Gomez
Paramount Pictures
Based on the true story of the rise and fall of Wall Street trader Jordan Belfort, Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” is more than just a damning account of the rot fueling the financial world’s elite – it might be one of the funniest movies of the last decade. Plus, it introduced the world to one of today’s biggest stars, Margot Robbie. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill, both here nominated for Oscars, lead the stellar ensemble. — Benjamin Lindsay
Ke Huy Quan and Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (Paramount)
There’s quite literally never a bad time to watch the “Indiana Jones” franchise. The iconic Paramount series began with Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” a perfect movie, and continued with the darker but rollicking “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” the more epically adventurous “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and the… uh, fine “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Harrison Ford makes this franchise, and even in the worst entry in the series, there’s charm to be found. – Adam Chitwood
Aubrey Plaza in “Black Bear” (Momentum Pictures)
A festival hit that got swallowed by the void of 2020, “Black Bear” features Aubrey Plaza in one of her best performances yet, starring as a director in a creative dry patch, who travels to a remote cabin and finds inspiration in toying with the cabin’s married owners (Cristopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon). But nothing is as simple as that in Lawrence Michael Levine’s trippy character piece, and in the second act, the film inverts, reframing the players and shifting into new power dynamics. It’s a fascinating watch that’s not really as confusing as it sounds, and Plaza is in peak form playing both sides of the coin. — Haleigh Foutch
Paramount Pictures
This might be the best movie on this entire list. The second film in Alan J. Pakula’s so-called paranoid thriller trilogy (after the terrific “Klute” and just two years before “All the President’s Men”), “The Parallax View” follows plucky reporter Warren Beatty as he investigates a shadowy organization called The Parallax Corporation years after the assassination of a presidential political candidate. To give anything else away would be criminal; so much of the fun of “The Parallax View” is the thrill of discovery. Not that it’s just cheapo entertainment. You can feel Pakula wrestling with the wave of assassinations in the 1960s, from JFK to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the implication that many of the murders could have been perpetrated by vast webs of likeminded individuals. Technically, the movie is a stunner too, with Gordon Willis’ cinematography telling so much of the story while providing so much of the subtext, and Michael Small’s music providing a low fog of existential dread. (John W. Wheeler’s editorial work, particularly in a pivotal scene, is dynamite.) Everything in “The Parallax View” leads to its ending, which is one of the great endings in movie history (and one that has been endlessly ripped off in the years since). All of that in a tight 103 minutes. What’s not to love? – Drew Taylor
Paramount Pictures
One of the five Leonardo DiCaprio-Martin Scorsese collabs we’ve gotten over the last 20 years, “Shutter Island” stands out from the pack as the only horror genre film the iconic filmmaker has taken on – and the risk pays off. Playing a Boston cop who goes deep into the belly of an insane asylum while investigating the disappearance of an escaped murderer, DiCaprio is unhinged and terrifyingly committed as his audience traces its way to the truth. Featuring some imagery that may keep you up at night, Scorsese’s epic adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel also packs one hell of a twist. — Benjamin Lindsay
Paramount Pictures
There is a rarely-trod hallowed ground for family films that succeed both as a children’s movie and a genuine for-all-ages fun time at the theaters, and the 2020 “Sonic the Hedgehog” adaptation thrives there. Inspired by the international mega-hit video game franchise, “Sonic” succeeds by putting the priority on being an entertaining movie rather than a fan-please homage — without forgetting to do the latter either. It’s a buddy-comedy with real laughs, a road movie with real heart and the funniest Jim Carrey has been in ages. — Haleigh Foutch
Columbia Pictures
Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece “Almost Famous” feels like a letter from an old friend, and in that way, it serves as a pretty terrific comfort movie. Inspired by Crowe’s experiences as a young reporter for Rolling Stone, the film follows a teenager who somewhat cons his way into going on the road with a breakout band called Stillwater for a profile in Rolling Stone magazine. What follows is a coming-of-age story in the midst of chaos, packed with colorful and loving characters that feel rich and defined. The ensemble cast includes Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand and Philip Seymour Hoffman. – Adam Chitwood
MGM
Based on the book by Sara Gay Forden with an adapted screenplay by Roberto Bentivegna, “House of Gucci” takes viewers behind a dynasty in fashion, directed by Ridley Scott. Adam Driver portrays Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, who works her way into the empire of the family business, which includes members Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), Aldo (Al Pacino) and Paolo (Jared Leto) Gucci. The family drama behind the fashion brand plays out between these main members and forces. Enter Salma Hayek as Pina Auriemma, Patrizia’s psychic, and things really heat up. — Dessi Gomez
Paramount Pictures
Who knew Matt Damon could be such a creep? After rising to fame in part thanks to his corn-fed all-American charm, Damon found a role in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s classic novel, “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” that played into his image in just the right ways – making his psychotic downfall as Tom Ripley all the more alluring and shocking. It’s the role of a lifetime. He stars in the film as Tom, a young, wayward soul who’s swept up into a world of riches, excess, intrigue and murder after he’s sent to Italy to fetch playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law) for his father. Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and Phillip Seymour Hoffman also star. — Benjamin Lindsay
Paramount Pictures
For more than twenty years, the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has sent Tom Cruise repelling, diving, cliff-hanging, helicopter-piloting, high-speed chasing and… well, you get the idea. As Ethan Hunt, Cruise has thrown himself full-body at one death-defying stunt after the next for nearly 30 years in pursuit of making one of cinema’s great action franchises — and it worked. Of course, it’s not just the stunts. It’s Cruise’s rare bonafide movie star wattage, a filmmaker-fluid open-armed embrace of the superspy genre, and the increasingly high stakes and more refined character work that have crystalized under Christopher McQuarrie’s shepherding of the series since the fifth installment. Pound for pound, blow for blow, stunt for bananas stunt; “Mission: Impossible” is one of Hollywood’s great franchises. –Haleigh Foutch
DreamWorks Pictures
Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum bring a great soccer story to life in “She’s the Man.” Bynes plays Viola, who has to pretend to be a boy to play soccer at her brother’s boarding school with an elite team. She nearly reveals herself to her roommate Duke (Channing Tatum) several times, which leads to many iconic moments like the tampon up her nose scene. Of course, Duke and Viola, who goes by Sebastian, gravitate toward each other and things take a turn. An extremely aughts re-telling of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” “She’s the Man” features a laugh-out-loud funny early Channing Tatum performance you won’t want to miss. — Dessi Gomez
Paramount Pictures
Before “Maverick,” there was “Top Gun,” and you’ll find the original streaming on Paramount+ as well. starring Tom Cruise as Pete Mitchell, Anthony Edwards as the beloved Goose, Meg Ryan as Carole, the beloved 80s actioner took audiences into the cockpit with some of the cockiest pilots on earth. Val Kilmer’s Iceman rivals Cruise’s Maverick in flight school. The sunset vibes and humidity were established in the original film, with Kelley McGillis starring opposite Cruise as an instructor and love interest. Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” adds to the romantic ambiance outside of the action scenes. — Dessi Gomez
Miramax
The 1996 film “Trainspotting” kicked off the careers of both Ewan McGregor and director Danny Boyle, and remains one of their very best films. Based on the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, the story follows a group of twentysomething heroin addicts in Edinburgh. It’s a hangout movie, thriller and dark comedy all rolled into one, with standout performances from McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Kelly Macdonald and Robert Carlyle. Just be forewarned: some of the imagery Boyle conjures here will stick with you forever in the most haunting way. – Adam Chitwood
Paramount Pictures
There’s a legacy sequel, “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley,” coming to Netflix sometime later this year (exact timing TBD), so why not brush up on your “Beverly Hills Cop” lore? The first film is still the best of the trilogy, as it introduced hardscrabble Detroit cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) who travels to posh Beverly Hills to solve the murder of his best friend. It really played to Murphy’s smart-aleck-y strengths and so much of the movie remains iconic to this day (Harold Faltermeyer’s glitchy electronic score, Judge Reinhold’s affable detective, Bronson Pinchot’s outrageous art dealer Serge).
The sequel, directed by Tony Scott, is less hilarious but more muscular and effortlessly stylized, while the third film gets a little lost, with a meandering plot and an uninterested Murphy (although Pinchot returns for one very funny scene). Hopefully, the new movie will return the series to the action/comedy balance of the first two films. And if not, you can always re-watch the originals. – Drew Taylor
Paramount Pictures
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself – and we say you should watch this modern classic! From filmmaker Stephen Daldry and based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Hours” beautifully depicts the lives, loves and insurmountable tribulations of three different women in three different decades, played exceptionally by Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep. Kidman, who here stars as famed “Mrs. Dalloway” author Virginia Woolf, took home the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in 2003. Standout supporting turns from Toni Collette, Ed Harris, Jeff Daniels and John C. Reilly also help this haunting feature stand the test of time. — Benjamin Lindsay
Columbia Pictures
A humdinger if there ever was one, Howard Hawks’ 1940 screwball comedy “His Girl Friday” is an absolute delight. Cary Grant plays the editor for The Morning Post who discovers that his ex-wife Hildy (Rosalind Russell) is about to marry someone else. Eager to scuttle these plans, he enlists her for one last story – the execution of a man convicted of murdering a policeman. The plot takes twists and turns while Grant and Russell volley flirtatious rat-a-tat dialogue back and forth as if they were in a tennis match. – Adam Chitwood
Paramount Pictures
Great monsters are personal; a product of their times and the fears of the filmmakers who create them — and the moviegoers who flock to them. From the found-footage format to the post-9/11 anxiety that pulses throughout the film’s imagery, “Cloverfield” is the definitive monster movie of the 2000s. And despite the baffling franchising that followed, despite the downfall of found footage in the court of public opinion, director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard crafted a tight, tense and immersive survival movie that holds up both as a highlight of the giant monster genre and perhaps the most successful studio embrace of the found footage craze. — Haleigh Foutch
MGM
Now that the very silly age controversy is behind us, can we all appreciate “Licorice Pizza” for what it is, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s most purely enjoyable film? Set in the San Fernando Valley in the early 1970s, “Licorice Pizza” follows the episodic adventures of teenager Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and Alana Kane (Alana Haim), the enigmatic, wayward older woman he adores. Crisscrossing through actual historical events (hello oil embargo!) and intersecting with real-world characters, like film producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) and closeted politician Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie), “Licorice Pizza” has the texture and feeling of something that happened, even if it is a couple of degrees away from actuality. It’s a loving ramble, as sprawling and offbeat as the Valley itself, full of terrific performances (including Sean Penn, Tom Waits and Skyler Gisondo) and unforgettable sequences (the whole escape from Jon Peters’ house is hilarious, fun, and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful). This might wind up as PTA’s shaggy dog masterpiece. – Drew Taylor
Paramount Pictures
You’ve heard the music in TikToks, now see the movie. Christopher Nolan’s 2014 film “Interstellar” is a heady time-travel sci-fi epic that also happens to be Nolan’s most purely emotional film. Set in the near future, Matthew McConaughey plays a former NASA pilot and single father who’s enlisted to travel through a wormhole to investigate three planets that could serve as a safe haven for humanity as Earth’s food sources are quickly dwindling. Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck and Timothée Chalamet co-star, and the film features one of Hans Zimmer’s best scores. – Adam Chitwood
Paramount Pictures
Few films have harnessed George Clooney’s charisma quite as effectively as Jason Reitman’s rightfully six-time Oscar-nominated feature from 2009, “Up in the Air.” Humanizing corporate downsizing in the heat of a recession (a topic that potentially hits too close to home nearly 15 years later), “Up in the Air” pulls no punches in its dog-eat-dog portrayal of Ryan Bingham (Clooney), a corporate contractor hired to make the calls c-suites don’t have the courage to, and the women pulled into his orbit: the cold-as-ice love interest Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) and young upstart Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick). All three performances were nominated at that year’s Academy Awards.
Universal
Bernard Rose’s “Candyman” isn’t just one of the scariest, most iconic movies of the 1990s – it’s also one of the decade’s very best movies (period). That left the 2021 reimagining, which effortlessly slides between sequel and reboot, with some very large, potentially bee-infested shoes to fill. And somehow, the project rises to the challenge. Director Nia DaCosta, working from a script co-written by herself, Jordan Peele and his frequent partner Win Rosenfeld (once again using Clive Barker’s creepy story as inspiration), nimbly adapts the premise to present day. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a struggling painter who lives in a posh condo where the Cabrini-Green housing projects used to stand. Looking for inspiration, he gets drawn into the mystery of the Candyman and ends up resurrecting the legend in an unlikely way. This “Candyman” works so well because it combines the same social commentary that the original deftly deployed alongside some killer set pieces (including a brief, unforgettable tangential moment where a group of teenagers tempt fate). Say his name five times fast and then press play. – Drew Taylor
20th Century Fox
Steven Spielberg took on the work of literary sci-fi giant Philip K. Dick with his 2002 “Minority Report” adaptation and delivered one of the best science fiction movies of the 21st Century so far. Starring Tom Cruise as John Anderson, Chief of the Precrime police unit that has all but eliminated murder through the questionable use of precognitive abilities, the film finds Anderson on the run from his own unit when they predict he will kill a man he’s never met. An action-packed, gripping mystery that tangles with free will and government overreach, the film has also become known as one of the more accurate sci-fi films when it came to its futuristic world-building thanks to the innovative think tank that helped construct it. — Haleigh Foutch
Paramount Pictures
Released in 1962, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is one of the best Westerns ever made. The film stars James Stewart as a young do-gooder attorney who is attacked by a gang leader named Liberty Valance. He’s rescued and nursed back to health by an aging outlaw played by John Wayne, and what ensues are two different kinds of men teaming up to take on a baddie. Stewart’s character believes the law and justice will prevail, while Wayne’s character knows the only way to stop Valance is to take the law into his own hands. Director John Ford gets meta about Western tropes here, as Liberty Valance is very much a “goodbye” to the old-fashioned Westerns led by Wayne and a passing-of-the-torch of sorts to Stewart’s character, who refuses to get his hands dirty. – Adam Chitwood
Dimension
An underrated installment in the hit-or-miss horror franchise, “Halloween: H20” represents an interesting juncture in slasher history, following on the heels of the 1996 game-changer “Scream” while also signaling a desire to return to “Halloween’s” simpler scary-guy-with-a-knife roots. The two tones don’t always mesh perfectly, but there’s a lot to love in the 1998 installment, which shares a lot of creative DNA with the 2018 “Halloween” reboot. Returning to the story of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), “H20” finds her hiding under a new identity, struggling with addiction and battling her trauma as she attempts to raise her son (Josh Hartnett) with a hint of normalcy. Then Michael Myers returns. — Haleigh Foutch
Paramount
If you’re in the mood for an old-school adventure romance with a bit of a silly streak, “The Lost City” is just the ticket. Sandra Bullock stars as romance novelist Loretta Sage alongside Channing Tatum as her doting cover model, Alan. When Lorretta gets kidnapped by a scheming billionaire, Alan steps up to prove he’s a real hero and the pair wind up on the run, lost in the jungle, and way out of their depth on the hunt to find a great treasure before the big bad. A knowing nod toward genre great “Romancing the Stone,” “The Lost City” stands on its own as more than homage thanks to its laugh-out-loud goofy streak, great chemistry between Bullock and Tatum, and an A+ Brad Pitt cameo. — Haleigh Foutch
A24
“Saint Maud” was poised to be A24’s next big horror hit, coming off of a stellar festival run with glowing reviews, lined up with a prime theatrical debut… in 2020. The film did make it to audiences eventually, but got largely buried in the all-too-real terrors of that year. Which is a shame because Rose Glass’ debut feature is a searing, haunting piece of character-driven horror with two knock-down-drag-out performances from Morfydd Clark (who’s since lined up a starring role in Amazon’s “Rings of Power” series) and Jennifer Ehle. A ferocious tangle of faith, grief, guilt and good old-fashioned primal carnality, “Saint Maud” is exactly the type of thought-provoking technical stunner you’d expect from A24, so if you missed it during its original release, don’t sleep on it now. — Haleigh Foutch
In 2002, director Sam Jones made what is widely considered a benchmark for 21st century music documentaries with “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco,” a movie that lucked into just about all the subject matter that could make B-roll footage of the making of an album into A-list material. It had conflict within the band, between an auteur and another member of great talent; conflict with the soon-to-be-ex-record label, over the basically unwanted classic-to-be “Yankee Foxtrot Hotel”); and said auteur doing his own demon-wrestling, outside foils notwithstanding.
Now, it’s easier to see that Jones’ good fortune in happening upon all that wasn’t all luck. More than 20 years later, Jones has come up with another gold-standard music doc, in the form of “Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed,” newly streaming on HBO Max. This time, as the creation of another amazing record — Isbell’s “Reunions” (recorded in late 2019 and released a few months later) — is put under the filmic microscope, there are no record-company bookkeepers as unseen baddies in the backdrop to a making-of. Major labels and the conflicts that come with them are so 2002, right? But one common thread is intra-band tension… as it probably will be in most good rock docs now or 20 years from now. It gets more interesting than that, though. In this instance, the difficult vibes are between bandmates who double as a married couple — Isbell and his fiddler-spouse, Amanda Shires. Here, unlike the by-now iconic beefing between Jay Tweedy and Jay Bennett, we know no one’s ultimately going anywhere, right?
Or are they? No one expresses too clearly to the camera in the moment exactly how badly things are going on the personal front, as the recording or some of the most meaningful rock material in recent years seems to more or less move along like gangbusters. But after we see some cutting and/or possibly passive-aggressive remarks shared between husband and wife, the next thing we know, producer Dave Cobb is suggesting that Isbell try out some material at home — and the singer lets slip that “home” that night will be the local Omni. (This isn’t elaborated on in the film, but in real life both members of the couple had at least one night spent in a hotel room.) Later, Shires picks up her iPhone and reads an email letter that she wrote to her husband at their bottom during this time, half matter-of-fact, half heart-wrenching. Suddenly it seems like anything might be possible, even a split between the much-celebrated king and queen of Americana-leaning rock.
The ending is never really in doubt, which maybe is why it’s more satisfying than it ought to be to see the marrieds at the movie’s center squabble, with firm evidence of their mutual fierce emotional intelligence and empathy, knowing there’s likely to be something instructive about it. There’s a scene partway through the 2019 studio footage that flashes ahead to some shared time Isbell and Shires had on stage at a 2020 Walt Disney Hall gig, smack between the wrap-up of the album and the start of the pandemic. In the middle of one song, Shires throws Isbell a mid-verse wink that goes unseen by everyone but the camera, and he offers a slight smile back. It’s hard to think of a more heart-warming moment in the history of the movies this year where strictly visual cues say: This is harder than anyone around us knows, and we’re gonna get through it — and it’s all our secret.
Moving back into the album-making material, Jones eavesdrops on some of the deaths-by-papercuts that can make a marriage go wrong, which just happen to express themselves in an artistic context. Shires takes it as something deeper than a passing comment that he says her violin is too loud. Meanwhile, Isbell’s not happy at the way that his wife, a great singer-songwriter in her own right who happens to have a masters in creative writing, wants to red-pen some of the grammar in the lyrics to the doc’s title song, which he already slaved over. These scenes speak as much to marital strife as musical differences, but also to the editor/writer relationship: It’s sad — but, honestly, just a little more amusing for us than it had to have been at the time — to see a couple that might be fraying around the edges ramp up tension over deeply held positions about usage of the past or present participle in a song lyric. (Isbell is hardly concerned with grammatical rightness in his lyrics, himself: He quips that his audience is “not out there dancing, so I’ve got to get my prepositions right.”)
Jones’ film is not just “Scenes From a Marriage” with a literally harmonious ending, although that relationship stuff is certainly some of the movie’s most compelling. Here’s a fact: Shires is as much of a natural movie star as Isbell is. (We’ll see how some of that plays out when he is seen in his dramatic film debut in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” coming out in October.) The camera loves not just their faces but their mutual mixture of sweetness and acerbic thorniness. Shires comes off as the kind of open book you want to leave open; Isbell seems like he wants to make it his mission to be that transparent, just in the an artistic/empathic deal he’s made with his audience, if nothing else, though he can’t help but be a slight bit more difficult to crease. “Sometimes he needs a lot of space,” she says, as they sit for a joint interview. “You’re goddam right,” he responds. “I’m a man from Alabama, for Christ’s sake.” It sounds like he’s making a self-effacing joke — and if you know his funny Twitter persona at all, he is! — but that doesn’t mean he won’t cut off the interview to go outside in a few seconds.
The doc is hardly all focused on this relationship; there’s too much interesting Isbell backstory that brought Jones to the project in the first place. The director does a terrific job of finding the songs or lyrics that relate most to the tales he wants to put on screen, and one of these has to do with “Dreamsicle,” one of the highlights of the “Reunions” album, and as great a song as the singer-songwriter genre has produced in the last few years. Isbell jokes that the producer, Cobb, who isn’t so focused on lyrics as sound, “still thinks it’s about ice cream.” Actually, it’s pretty specifically about his experience as the child of parents in the midst of deciding to divorce (both mom and dad are bravely interviewed on screen). There’s darling footage home-video footage of a possibly pubescent Isbell — now a modern-day guitar hero — showing off his growing shredding acumen on “Sunshine of My Love.” It’s less darling when he says he took up guitar to drown out the sound of his parents fighting. (That might almost be the oldest story in the world.) A line in “Dreamsicle” about broken glass turns out not to have been random or abstract: Everyone recounts how he threw a baseball through a window when even the electric guitar could no longer mask the marital strife that was driving him crazy.
The present-day marital story does figure into that sequence, premonitorily; what child of divorce, like Isbell, doesn’t wonder how or if they’re going to do it better? But before it really gets back to their marriage, “Running With Our Eyes Closed” moves on to territory many fans may be most curious to see. That would be his hard-drinking years, which are increasingly tough to watch as more video evidence is put on screen, though they went into Isbell being what he partly is today — an un-sanctimonious symbol of recovery among rock ‘n’ rollers. (“Cover Me Up,” his signature song, has just one line about getting sober, but it’s become the biggest line of his career.) There’s sufficient coverage of the years in which Isbell blossomed into a baby-faced alcoholic as a member of the great band Drive-By Truckers, including candid accounts from that group’s leader, Patterson Hood, who repeats the oft-told irony about just how much of a liquor-soaked mess one had to be to get kicked out of Drive-By Truckers. Isbell is a few years into his solo career, and a little bit into his second marriage, to Shires, before he goes into treatment … preceded by one last blowout show in which he got drunker than he’d ever been on stage. Manager Traci Thomas lent her secret DVD of that night to Jones, saying she’d always held it in her archives in case a relapse called for a “Scared Straight” moment, and that footage makes its ugly — but fascinating — premiere here.
The third act more or less takes as its theme their relationship in recovery, without quite letting on just how much danger it ever was or wasn’t in; a marriage, like a woman, has gotta keep some secrets. It’s also about the boredom of the pandemic, which may not be the subject every viewer is most eager to revisit in a documentary right now. The film could have gone off the rails as a documentary because Jones had to resort to sending the couple high-def cameras to shoot their own monologues, alongside the remote press he was doing to promote “Reunions,” to finish out the film project. (It does not go far into the future; the new album Isbell has coming out this June was not yet a gleam in anyone’s eye when filming wrapped.) Happily, they re-bonded, somehow, over quarantine frustrations, unlike the couples they’re well aware of whose problems became exacerbated by being mutual shut-ins. They sure would be delighted by each other’s company, ultimately … even in, or especially in, the concentrated doses a pandemic demanded.
The subtitle of the movie almost feels like a misnomer, although it nicely echoes the title of that track of Isbell’s. Whatever else you might say of Isbell, or Shires, in the best or worst of times, proceeding with closed eyes doesn’t feel like a problem. The doc could almost have a different subtitle, taking a cue from the Wilco film: “We Are Trying to Mend Our Hearts.” You might actually feel it doing a small reparation job on yours.
“Yup, great actress for pulling that off! She had me swearing a lot. Marty saved her life by not letting her get thrown out of a window/balcony, but she constantly undermined her husband, and didn’t give a damn about his well-being. She even turned their kids against him. She threw everybody under the bus to save her own ass.”
“As much as she was an awful person, fuck, she was good at it! She did it so well; such convincing manipulation and detailed plots and schemes. I sat in awe watching her get more and more evil as the show went on. I didn’t agree with anything she did, and most of the moves she made sucked for basically everyone else, but man was she good at being a shit cunt.”
According to a new report, an upcoming MCU film is going to be heavily inspired by anime.
Throughout the next couple years, despite seemingly major delays in MCU television releases, the studio will continue pumping out movies like a superhero flick machine.
Now, more information may have been revealed about a source of inspiration for an upcoming project.
An Anime-Inspired Captain Marvel 2
Marvel
According to a report by industry expert Jeff Sneider of The Hot Mic podcast, November’s The Marvels will be “very anime inspired:”
“One thing that I’ve heard is ‘The Marvels’ is very anime-inspired.”
No other context or information was shared — including whether that inspiration will be visual, plot-centric, or something else entirely.
In recent months, many major Hollywood features have had anime inspiration, from Turning Red and Bullet Train to Creed III and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Regarding the third Creed film, star Michael B. Jordan — who also plays the MCU’s Killmonger, an anime fan according to an episode of What If…? — discussed the anime inspiration with Polygon. He explained that, in anime, “there’s all these similar tones, themes, and feelings between them all … for me, tapping into that was just a part of me:”
“When you’re watching anime, there’s all these similar tones, themes, and feelings between them all that in a sense boil down to when a hero is challenged, and they usually have a best friend or rival that’s the one challenging them in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of different ways anime iterates on these themes and feelings. So for me, tapping into that was just a part of me.”
The Oscar-nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was also full of anime inspiration. Director Joel Crawford told Variety that he wanted audiences to be able to “feel the imprint of anime” in the Puss in Boots sequel, adding that “it was fun to take on that inspiration and design the shape of the characters, but also the action of the world:”
“I remember [as a young child seeing] the hand-drawn explosions and the whole thing felt so epic. It was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, I was drawing dust clouds afterward and they were characters themselves. It was fun to take on that inspiration and design the shape of the characters, but also the action of the world.”
How Might Anime Inspire The Marvels?
Given that The Marvels is a live-action movie and not an animated one, visual inspiration from anime would theoretically be limited to the visual effects. However, the opening sequence of Ms. Marvel on Disney+, starring Iman Vellani‘s Kamala Khan, one of the featured characters in the November movie, was, in a sense, animated. Throughout the show, too, animated-style words and phrases were blended into the live-action scenery.
It is not unheard of to use animation within a live-action setting, something the film’s director, Nia DaCosta, could implement. The visual inspiration Crawford recounted to Variety could be where this anime influence comes in for The Marvels.
The Marvels could take the Creed III approach to anime inspiration and include that influence into the film’s plot. The three main characters — Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeau, and the aforementioned Kamala Khan — will inevitably form — or re-form — their relationships in compelling ways, potentially challenging one another in the manner Jordan described.
In the era of legacy sequels, could the vampire movie Sleepwalkers be given a follow-up film? More than three decades after the release of the original film, that remains to be seen. But should Sleepwalkers 2 end up happening anytime soon, then Stephen King and Co. may want to give lead star Brian Krause a call, as he believes his return would be necessary — even if that means resurrecting his character.
Krause spoke about his work on Sleepwalkers in a new interview with Horror Geek Life. Reflecting on 31 years of Sleepwalkers, Krause spoke about the film’s enduring popularity with horror movie fans. He says that at the time of production, he knew Sleepwalkers had the benefit of having horror mastermind Stephen King attached, though he admits that he didn’t imagine the film would still have such a strong cult following in 2023. Looking back, Krause also feels lucky to have been involved with the film because of its solid cast and crew.
As Krause explains in the interview:
“Growing up, I wasn’t a big horror fan. It scares me easily, but we all knew Stephen King growing up, and that’s going to stick around. But it’s crazy to even think that we’re still watching it. It’s owed to Stephen King and Mick Garris, who’s gone on to become such a master in the last 30 years, and the countless, endless projects his creativity has touched. So it’s no wonder that one of his first visions is still resonating with people. Jim Haynie, Mädchen Amick, Ron Perlman, Tobe Hooper, Ernie Lively, and everybody that was a part of it is, they were solid, solid people. Me being such a rookie at the time, how lucky am I to be mentioned in the same space as all those people?”
The HGL interview touched on comments previously made by Sleepwalkers director Mick Garris about a potential sequel. While there’s nothing officially in the works, Krause says he needs to return if any follow-up to Sleepwalkers ever happens.
“If [Sleepwalkers 2 happens], they’d have to bring me back to life somehow. Maybe I’m not really dead. There has to be a way.”
Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers: Part 2 Wasn’t Able to Get Studio Support
Columbia Pictures
Sleepwalkers was scripted by Stephen King, and the movie has the distinction of being the first movie written by the acclaimed author that wasn’t based on one of his novels. The movie tells the story of the last two survivors of a species of shapeshifting vampires who must feed on the life force of virgin women in order to stay alive. Along with the aforementioned names, the movie also includes cameos from Joe Dante, Clive Barker, and Mark Hamill.
In 2020, Mick Garris said on his Post Mortem podcast with Joe Russo that there had actually been talk of doing a Sleepwalkers sequel. Tabitha King, Stephen King’s wife, had actually written a treatment for a sequel that “involved a women’s basketball team somehow,” though not much else was revealed about the potetial plot. Garris said he didn’t personally get to read the treatment as the project failed to get the necessary studio attention to move forward. As Garris explained:
“I never read it, but King was very excited that Tabby came up with this. But it was a sequel that nobody at the studio gave a sh-t about. You know, they liked the money that Sleepwalkers made, but it was not a prestige release by any means, so they never even thought about Sleepwalkers after.”
If you want to revisit Sleepwalkers, you can currently find the movie streaming for free on Pluto TV. Meanwhile, you can also catch Brian Krause in his latest movie, the Western film Homestead, which is also streaming for free over on Tubi.
The Season 4 Trailer for Overwatch 2 just premiered and quite a few cool things were showcased. Here are the highlights for all those who can’t watch the YouTube video or simply don’t want to bother with all that noise when there’s someone who will happily break it all down for you.
Overwatch 2 Season 4 Trailer Showcases Cardboard Reinhardt, Pinocchio Zenyatta… and Giant Shield Brigitte?
Season 4 of Overwatch 2 will release next week on April 11. And there are quite a few things we can look forward to.
All New Overwatch 2 Hero Lifeweaver
The Season 4 Trailer, which ran only two minutes, highlighted the most recently announced hero, Lightweaver. Lightweaver is a support character that focuses primarily on utility by creating platforms, re-positioning teammates, and providing burst healing. Players naturally went feral when Lifeweaver was first revealed, but the Season 4 trailer gave us more of a look into his abilities.
All New Battle Pass Cosmetics in Overwatch 2’s Season 4
We also received a glimpse into what we can expect from the Season 4 Battle Pass, which is meant to be Space Opera themed. But, as we’ve seen in the past, that doesn’t mean that the cosmetics will hold hard and true to that theme.
The Battle Pass cosmetics we’ve seen so far are skins for Hanzo and Lifeweaver, which are likely to be on the free track. There are also a series of victory emotes for Doomfist, Kiriko, Mercy, Life Weaver, Hanzo, D.Va, and Ana.
The Premium track seems to have skins for Mercy, Soldier: 76, and Sojourn, Hammond, Lucio, Torbjorn, and Doomfist.
The Mythic Skin at the end of the Battle Pass will go to our favorite scientist, Sigma. This skin is called Galactic Emperor, and, like past Mythic Skins, its design is fantastic and customizable.
All New Shop Skin in Overwatch 2’s Season 4
Outside of the Battle Pass, two new exclusive skins have been announced for Zenyatta and Reinhardt, which will only be available in the shop. Zenyatta will receive a Pinocchio skin and Reinhardt will get a cardboard armor skin. Pinocchio Zenyatta looks like my sleep paralysis demon.
The shop will also have a new emote for Zenyatta, a black Lifeweaver Skin, an Omnic-inspired skins for Junkrat and Roadhog, and a harlequin-esque skin for Widowmaker.
New Game Modes, Maps, Pride, and Reworks
Finally, it seems like we’ll get a new game mode called Starwatch, from May 9 – 22. This game mode features an alien Winston skin, which might be exclusive to the event. While we only get a small glimpse at Winston’s background, it looks to me to be the Lunar Colony map we haven’t seen since Overwatch 1.
A community-made map will also premiere later this month. This map is called Talantis. Inspired by the mythical city Atlantis, Talantis showcases a vertical map with plenty of corners and corridors for some sneaky plays.
Lifeweaver and Symmetra will both be getting challenges, which will allow players to grab some verdant skins for free. Lifeweaver’s Challenge doesn’t have a start date, but we can assume it will happen shortly after his release. Symmetra’s challenge will begin on May 23 and end later that week on the 29.
Overwatch 2 has also announced on Twitter that they’ll be doing something for Pride month. But as of right now, we don’t know what that will look like, beyond Pride flags in the Midtown map.
But one of the biggest changes to Season 4 will come in the form of Brigitte’s new Ultimate. Previously, Brigitte’s Ultimate, Rally, would have her lift her mace and charge forward with a short-term boost of speed that provided long-lasting armor to her nearby allies. Her new Ultimate will have more utility, as her shield will expand outwards, like Reinhardt’s. Is this the resurrection of the two-shield meta? We’ll have to wait and see.
Other cosmetics that haven’t been given an explicit home are a vaporwave Tracer, a cyborg-esque Baptiste, and space cowboy Ashe and Bob, a masked Ramattra, extra roboty Echo, and a dark villain Brigitte.
Editor Patrick Lawrence shares how he’s used Adobe Premiere Pro to achieve his dream of becoming a professional film editor, including working on seven films featured at the Sundance Film Festival.
By Michelle Gallina, principal product marketing manager, Adobe Creative Cloud: Premiere Pro & After Effects.
Since Patrick Lawrence started working as a professional film editor 11 years ago, he has seen seven of his films premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, including the feature-length films Scare Me and Clara’s Ghost. Whether working on film, television, music videos, or commercial projects, Lawrence has built a reputation as a passionate collaborator who puts everything into his art.
Lawrence’s most recent Sundance film, Mirror Party, reunited Lawrence with a frequent collaborator, director Bridey Elliott, to tell the story of two best friends whose conversation begins to blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
I sat down to talk with Lawrence about Sundance, his journey into the industry, and why Adobe Premiere Pro has remained his app of choice for so many years.
Credit: Courtesy of Patrick Lawrence
Tell me a bit about Mirror Party and what made the edit unique.
Lawrence:Mirror Party is essentially about two best friends. One is having trouble with her boyfriend, so the two decide to role play a difficult conversation. But as the role play goes on, the lines between the friend and boyfriend start to blur, until it starts to feel like a fever dream.
One of the biggest things we explored in the edit was trying to play up the slow slide between reality and fantasy. A lot of that was accomplished through sound, color, and lighting. This is where Adobe Premiere Pro and the Lumetri Color Panel really came into play. For instance, at one point in the film, the two characters pretend that they’re in a restaurant. Slowly, the living room that they’re in starts to transform until one character snaps out of the illusion. That was done in Premiere Pro, using the Lumetri Color Panel to create the dimly lit atmosphere of an intimate restaurant, then switch back to brighter living room lighting in a second.
Frame.io was also huge for the Mirror Party edit. Bridey and I were in Los Angeles, but co-writer and co-star Angela Trimbur was in New York. With Frame.io, we could all be looking at the edit and commenting on it at the same time from opposite coasts. I was an early adopter of Frame.io, and I always used to operate with Premiere Pro on one screen and Frame.io on another. But now that the two apps are integrated, it’s so fantastic. I don’t have to leave Premiere Pro to see notes or share videos with others.
‘Mirror Party’ poster
Have you always worked with Premiere Pro?
Lawrence: You can’t be an editor only knowing one platform, but when I have a choice, I go with Premiere Pro. I’ve had seven films in Sundance so far, and every one of those has been edited in Premiere Pro. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but maybe there’s something to it.
Editing is always about finding ways to be faster, and Adobe definitely provides that. I feel like Adobe is really good at finding that balance between delivering all the functionality that professionals need, but still making it relatively easy to learn. Things like the Lumetri Color Panel and Essential Sound Panel make my rough cuts look so much more polished. Premiere Pro also takes advantage of the integration with After Effects to make it easier to incorporate things like titles, graphics, masks, and tracking effects into the edit.
Are there any upcoming Premiere Pro features that you’re excited about?
Lawrence: I’m most excited about the big advancements Adobe is making in AI. Like Auto Reframe in Premiere Pro uses AI to automatically center the main action of a video for any aspect ratio. This is huge in the commercial space where clients want multiple versions of a video for social media. Auto Reframe gets the resizing done 95% of the way, so I just need to make a couple of tweaks and hit Export. I’m always most interested in story and character in my edit, so anything that makes the technical stuff easier makes me happy.
I also can’t wait to start working with Speech to Text. Say a director is looking at an edit, but they don’t like the way that the actor says, “I love you.” Using Speech to Text, I can search through all of the takes and pull up the right keyframes in seconds. Before, it might have taken me several minutes of scrolling through all the shots. That’s time that the director and I get back to put toward polishing the film.
Patrick Lawrence’s locked cut of Mirror Party in Adobe Premiere ProCredit: Patrick Lawrence
How did you get your start in editing?
Lawrence: I always knew that I wanted to work in film. When I went to college and studied film, everyone wanted to be a director, and I thought that I needed a way to stand out. So, I took a video production course my freshman year. I was surprised to learn that editing felt like a natural extension of what I love about directing. It’s all about finding the characters and bringing the story together.
I found a place in the St. Louis film community, but I wanted to make the leap to Los Angeles before I got too comfortable. It was like completely starting over. I went from never having to look for work to handing out my business card everywhere I could to get projects. It took a while, but eventually those planted seeds started to grow. Everything really changed when two short films I had edited made it into the Sundance Film Festival in 2016. There were 8,700 short films submitted. 72 were chosen, including 12 from the U.S., and I had worked on two of them: Dogwalker and Affections. Affections was particularly important because it was where I met Bridey, and we’ve collaborated on several films since, including her feature Clara’s Ghost and the documentary The Starr Sisters.
Do you have any advice for other editors?
Lawrence: I think the most important thing is to learn everything you can. Premiere Pro is my touchstone for editing, but sometimes you’ll get a job where they want you to use Final Cut or Avid or whatever. You should know enough to be dangerous on any platform.
But I also mean learn everything about Premiere Pro. After using it for so many years, Premiere Pro is kind of like an extension of myself. I’ll admit that sometimes I’d just glance through new Adobe release notes and ignore the changes. But I’m starting to pay more attention to learning new plug-ins and features that make my life easier. Like I just started working with the Essential Sound Panel and I can’t believe how much I love it. I avoided it for a while because I’m not great with sound mixing, but it makes my rough cuts sound amazing. Adjusting things like color and sound doesn’t seem important in a rough cut, but it means that people viewing the cut are less distracted by an unpolished edit and we can all focus on the most important thing: getting the story just right.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always movie, John Mulaney’s new stand-up special, the second season of Sweet Tooth and the final seasons of Better Call Saul, Working Moms and Firefly Lane are among the much-anticipated projects hitting Netflix this month.
The Power Rangers movie, streaming April 19, brings back series castmembers David Yost, Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas, Catherine Sutherland, Karan Ashley and Johnny Yong Bosch as they face off against the evil Rita Repulsa (Barbara Goodson) once more.
John Mulaney returns to Netflix for his latest stand-up special, Baby J, on April 25. Baby J, shot at Boston’s Symphony Hall, marks Mulaney’s third stand-up special at Netflix, which also streamed his variety special John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch in 2019. The special is also Mulaney’s first since his recent divorce, stint in rehab and welcoming a baby with Olivia Munn.
At the end of the month, Netflix welcomes the second season of Sweet Tooth and second part of the second and final season of Firefly Lane.
In the next set of Sweet Tooth episodes, Gus (Christian Convery) has to find new strength to save himself and his fellow hybrids, who are being held captive. The critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning series from showrunner Jim Mickle and Team Downey’s Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, Amanda Burrell and Evan Moore as well as executive producer Linda Moran, hits Netflix on April 27.
That same day, Netflix drops the final episodes of Firefly Lane. The second part of season two of the Katherine Heigl, Sarah Chalke starrer will reveal the fate of Tully (Heigl) and Kate’s (Chalke) lifelong friendship and look back on the pals’ past ups and downs.
Firefly Lane is far from the only series dropping its final season on Netflix this month, with the streamer also adding the last episodes of Better Call Saul, for those who missed the sixth and final season of the Bob Odenkirk starrer when it ended its run on AMC last year, and Workin’ Moms, which hits Netflix after airing its seventh and last season in Canada earlier this year.
But Netflix also has plenty of new offerings this month, including the Keri Russell-starring political drama, The Diplomat; Boston Marathon bombing docuseries American Manhunt, looking into the days after the tragic attack 10 years ago; and Edgar Ramirez starrer Florida Man, about a struggling ex-cop who has to return to his home state on a mysterious mission that turns into a wild odyssey.
Earlier this month, Netflix added American Hustle, The Birds, Charlie Wilson’s War, Born on the Fourth of July, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, How to Train Your Dragon, Hotel Transylvania, Inception, Inside Man, A League of Their Own, Psycho, Puss in Boots, Shrek Forever After, Beef and The Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum.
Read on for the complete list of titles hitting Netflix this April.
April 1 American Hustle Battleship The Birds Born on the Fourth of July The Bourne Identity The Bourne Supremacy The Bourne Ultimatum Charlie Wilson’s War Conan the Destroyer Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax Friday Night Lights Hatfields & McCoys: Season 1 Hoarders: Season 12 Hotel Transylvania How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days How to Train Your Dragon I, Frankenstein Inception Inside Man The Land Before Time (1988) A League of Their Own Marnie Matilda (1996) The Negotiator Not Another Teen Movie Psycho (1960) Puss in Boots Shark Tale Shrek Forever After Smokey and the Bandit Smokey and the Bandit II Thomas & Friends: The Mystery of Lookout Mountain 28 Days Zombieland
April 2 War Sailor: Limited Series
April 3 Magic Mixies: Season 1 Surviving R. Kelly Part III: The Final Chapter: Season 1
April 4 My Name Is Mo’Nique The Signing
April 5 Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now
April 6 Beef The Last Stand
April 7 Chupa Holy Spider Kings of Mulberry Street: Let Love Reign Oh Belinda Thicker Than Water Transatlantic
April 8 Hunger
April 10 CoComelon: Season 8
April 11 All American: Homecoming Season 2 Leanne Morgan: I’m Every Woman
April 12 American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing Celeste Barber Fine, thanks Operation: Nation Smother-in-Law: Season 2
April 13 The Boss Baby: Back in the Crib: Season 2 Florida Man Obsession
April 14 Phenomena Queenmaker Queens on the Run Seven Kings Must Die Weathering
April 15 Doctor Cha Time Trap
April 16 The Best Man Holiday Love Is Blind: The Live Reunion The Mustang The Nutty Boy Part 2
April 17 Oggy Oggy: Season 2
April 18 Better Call Saul: Season 6 How to Get Rich Longest Third Date
April 19 Chimp Empire Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
April 20 The Diplomat Tooth Pari: When Love Bites
April 21 A Tourist’s Guide to Love Chokehold Indian Matchmaking: Season 3 One More Time Rough Diamonds
April 22 Ada Twist, Scientist: Season 4
April 25 The Hateful Eight The Hateful Eight: Extended Version: Season 1 John Mulaney: Baby J The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama & Oprah Winfrey
April 26 The Good Bad Mother Kiss, Kiss! Love After Music Workin’ Moms: Season 7
April 27 Firefly Lane: Season 2 Part 2 The Matchmaker The Nurse Sharkdog: Season 3 Sweet Tooth: Season 2
April 28 AKA InuYasha: Season 6 King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch
8:20 p.m. This story has been updated to add the premiere date for The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama & Oprah Winfrey
A movie about spreading profits beyond the usual recipients offers a key lesson on the new economics of streaming and box office
“Air,” which opened in wide theatrical release on Wednesday and stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Chris Tucker and Jason Bateman, details how a then-underdog Nike bet its footwear future on then-rookie Michael Jordan. The film dramatizes boardroom pitches and frantic business phone calls into a tale of how capitalism was pretzeled into supplying fortune and glory to members of a demographic rarely on the receiving end.
So it makes sense that the Skydance and Mandalay-produced film is the first from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity. One of the selling points of the venture is a promise of profit participation for both above-the-line stars and below-the-line artists. The Hollywood titans dipped into their own fees, along with money saved during production via artist-driven efficiency, to create a discretionary bonus system, insiders told TheWrap.
Artists Equity is pitching the system as an old-school solution to a new streaming-era problem: Box-office-based bonuses are becoming outdated due to a challenging theatrical marketplace while streaming viewership is clouded in mystery. Yet the changing economics around streaming and new thinking about the value of theatrical releases are the very factors that have let “Air” and its unorthodox financial structure come to life.
Artists Equity isn’t the only one dabbling in profit sharing
“Our goal with Artists Equity is to build a creator-focused studio that can optimize the production process with shared participation in the commercial success of projects,” said Affleck in a statement last November as he announced undertaking “Air.”
It’s far from the only one of its kind. Angel Studios, for example, bills itself as a crowdfunded entertainment empire specializing in — but not exclusively releasing — faith-based theatrical and streaming content like “Christmas with the Chosen” and last week’s “His Only Son.” CEO Neal Harmon said that “when people who are involved in the process of making the movie are stakeholders, they put more care into it. They are creating a production company where everyone gets a piece of the pie.”
Legion M CEO Paul Scanlan, whose company bills itself as fan-driven and-funded, agreed with those sentiments. “It’s an echo from the distant past,” he said. “When [Affleck and Damon] first entered this industry, they were probably making a lot more money on the back end than they are today,” Scanlan observed. A drive toward quality for streamers could lead to similar situations if only to motivate artists and filmmakers to go that extra mile, he added.
‘Air’ trailer
Theaters as marketing
“Air” cost around $90 million to produce and Amazon paid $130 million to distribute the film, with the difference paid out to rights holders and producers. That made for challenging economics: Even before streaming gobbled up huge segments of casual moviegoers, there was rarely a time when an R-rated dramedy could earn enough at the worldwide box office to justify a $90 million budget, let alone $130 million plus marketing expenses.
Amazon is not releasing “Air” into 3,500 theaters this weekend because it expects to make a profit in raw theatrical revenue. Affleck’s other directorial feature “The Town” earned $154 million on a $40 million budget in late 2010, while “The Social Network” grossed $225 million that same season on a $40 million budget. A few years prior, $60 million flicks like “State of Play” and “Duplicity” were underperforming in relation to their budget, leading to media declarations of the death of the adult drama.
“Air” is getting a theatrical release partially because Amazon wants to remain in business with Artist Equity for stature and prestige. The other, more important reason is Amazon believes that even a money-losing theatrical release boosts the film’s awareness when it premieres as a streaming title on Prime Video.
That was, as previously reported, the logic in Warner Bros.’ comparatively “responsible” multiplex release for “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” as domestic distribution chief Jeff Goldstein explained it to TheWrap: enough to “cover promotional costs and perhaps earn a little money on the side.”
The top 15 most-streamed movies of 2022 (Nielsen)
The industry now knows that, with few exceptions, films that get a conventional theatrical release garner higher streaming viewership than do streaming-only titles. And for a company like Amazon that’s still trying to build its reputation in Hollywood, investing in theatrical distribution for streaming-intended features is itself a show of seriousness toward earning revenue and attracting top-tier talent.
“It’ll be hard to ignore if Amazon or Apple end up playing a significant role in helping mid-range and prestige films experience even more of a box office comeback in the next few years,” Boxoffice Pro chief analyst Shawn Robbins previously told TheWrap. For tech companies with seemingly limitless pocketbooks, commercial theatrical success for a given title is less important than the perception that the picture is a success between when it opens in theaters and debuts on streaming.
And for stars Affleck and Damon, it shows they “still believe in theaters and they believe the multiplex is still a practical business,” said Gerber Kawasaki CEO Ross Gerber when speaking to TheWrap.
Splitting the profits when profits are scarce
Nobody expects “Air” to gross enough theatrically to cover Amazon’s acquisition costs. The movie’s profit participation plan is partially rooted in professionally-beneficial altruism. Nonetheless, it’s an example of how streaming economics create a net good: a high-budget, well-received, non-franchise, star-driven studio programmer that helps theaters by virtue of its very existence and offers talented artists a bigger-than-usual piece of the pie.
Legion M will use an upcoming William Shatner documentary as its test case for profit sharing, but that’s a smaller company working with a sub-$1 million project.
Affleck and Damon showed a willingness to bet on themselves and a movie that once exemplified Hollywood’s bread-and-butter with money they presumably could afford to lose — while offering a payout to those who usually might not otherwise benefit. It’s the feel-good message of “Air” — one that its stars delivered on screen and behind the scenes, in an unusual scenario made possible by this tech-fueled moment in streaming.
In a galaxy far, far away, characters once only known in their animated form have been showing up in live action. First, the prequel-era adversary General Grievous (voiced in his initial appearance by Joe DiMaggio) was translated into a live action version in 2005’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (voiced by Matthew Wood in the films). Then, Saw Gerrera was first voiced by Andrew Kishino in Star Wars: Clone Wars before his debut on screen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in which Forest Whitaker played him. Most recently, Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) and Ahsoka Tano (first voiced by Ashley Eckstein, then played in live action by Rosario Dawson), both of whom first appeared in Clone Wars, made their live action debut on Disney+’s highly popular series, The Mandalorian. Now, two other fan-favorite characters from Dave Filoni’s extended Star Wars universe are making their live action debut in Star Wars: Ahoska, premiering on Disney+ in August 2023: Grand Admiral Thrawn and Sabine Wren, both originally of Star Wars: Rebels fame.
While details of what the Ahsoka standalone series will involve remain officially under wraps, stills from the show that were released following Friday’s Ahoska panel give fans a first look at live action Grand Admiral Thrawn (although there is still no word on who has been cast for the role), with the reveal seemingly confirming the theory that the show will follow Ahsoka now on the hunt for the evil Grand Admiral Thrawn in the hope that it will help her find the missing Ezra Bridger (originally voiced by Taylor Gray, and now played by Eman Esfandi), the young Jedi that disappeared with Thrawn and some space whales years ago.
At Star Wars Celebration 2023, it was also revealed that Sabine Wren is returning to the Star Wars Universe, and she will be played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo. The Australian actor most recently appeared as Heather in Netflix’s Day Shift.
Get a glimpse at Grand Admiral Thrawn and Sabine Wren below:
Star Wars: Ahsoka Premieres on Disney+ in August 2023:
Disney+
Jon Favreau and Filoni confirmed that Ahsoka, starring Rosario Dawson in the title role, will premiere exclusively on Disney+ this August 2023. According to the Lucasfilm press release, set after the fall of the Empire, Ahsoka follows the former Jedi knight Ahsoka Tano as she investigates an emerging threat to a vulnerable galaxy.
Dawson took the stage at Star Wars Celebration 2023 to unveil a teaser poster for the series, after which she was joined by co-stars Liu Bordizzo and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who announced that she will be playing Hera Syndulla. The presentation concluded with a new teaser trailer for the Disney+ original series, which is written by executive producer by Filoni, alongside executive producers Favreau, Kennedy, Wilson, and Beck. Gilchrist is co-executive producer.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, four Democratic lawmakers have called on the Department of Justice to investigate the company.
A letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Johanthan Kanter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Rep. David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) claims that the merger has appeared to have enabled the company to “adopt potentially anticompetitive practices that reduce consumer choice and harm workers in affected labor markets.”
Thousands of jobs cut, content creators harmed in unprecedented ways, less consumer choice. Mergers aren’t automatically good for business or people. (2/2)
The letter cites several workforce reductions that have occurred at the company over the past several months as part of its restructuring, including layoffs of 350 people at CNN+, 400 additional people across CNN and 100 people in its ad sales department. It also claims that WBD’s new ownership is “hollowing out an iconic American studio,” citing cancellations of various projects including the $90 million “Batgirl,” Gordita Chronicles,” “Demimonde,” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”
“The damage to content creators whose projects are cancelled in deep development and post-production cannot be overstated,” the letter states. “Such cancellations stain these projects, making them less appealing and marketable to other buyers—consumers will likely never be able to watch shows purchased then cancelled by WBD. WBD’s conduct amounts to a de facto ‘catch and kill’ practice, vastly limiting consumer choice.”
During a media event in January, DC Studios co-chairman and CEO Peter Safran said touted the “incredibly talented people in front of and behind the camera” on “Batgirl,” but noted that it was “not releasable.”
“I think Zaslav and the team made a bold and courageous decision to cancel it, because it would have hurt DC and those people involved,” he added.
Additionally, the letter targets the company’s upcoming combination of HBO Max and Discovery+, which the lawmakers said “leaves questions unanswered about whether a lower-priced platform will have reduced quality from the current product—while consumers are paying the same price and lack the transparency necessary to fully evaluate the plans and their relative prices.”
“With fewer alternatives available to consumers, there is less competitive pressure on WBD to innovate or provide a variety of quality content,” they added.
WBD is slated to hold a special event on April 12 to discuss the details of its new combined offering.
According to Bloomberg, the streamer will continue to charge $15-$16 per month for the ad-free version, as much as $20 a month for a new higher-priced tier which will offer better video quality and other high-end features and a cheaper, ad-supported tier for $10 a month. The streamer will also add thousands of unscripted reality titles from Discovery at no extra cost to HBO Max subscribers, while Discovery+ will continue as its own separate, lower-priced service.
The restructuring, which the company anticipates will be completed by the end of 2024, is expected to result in up to $5.3 billion in total pre-tax restructuring charges, including up to $3.5 billion in content impairment and development write-offs.
“We respectfully request that the Department take another look at the transaction, considering WBD’s post-transaction conduct,” the letter concludes. “We also hope that the competitive consequences resulting from the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger inform updates to the merger guidelines to ensure that the guidelines reflect the needs of workers, consumers, and content creators in the media and entertainment industry.”
A spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. Representatives for the Department of Justice did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
Some closet mainstays simply never go out of style, and the best leather jackets definitely fit the bill. The classic outerwear staple offers aesthetic versatility and seasonal fluidity which makes it an excellent layering piece that will stand the test of time. From classic moto jackets to sleek blazers, there’s a plethora of styles to choose from, each one a wardrobe essential with its own unique vibe.
A lightweight leather jacket—be it cropped or beat-in and oversized—is frequently touted as a transitional staple; the spring jacket (but also fall jacket) can be styled in a myriad of ways throughout the year, and isn’t really beholden to trends. You can throw it over a spring dress or layer it underneath a winter coat (for when you got a little too excited about the sunshine but didn’t check the temperature). Beyond their year-round styling potential, genuine leather jackets last a long time—and look best a little worn-in—which can help justify the investment.
Whether you want to test out roomier silhouettes with the trending bomber jackets, or you want that ‘70s-inspired retro flare via a healthy dose of fringe, we’ve got just the pick for you. Ahead, 15 leather jackets that will help to tie your look together in a snap.
Our top picks:
All products featured on Glamour are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment has entered a significant content deal with Major League Baseball, Variety can report exclusively.
The partnership will yield multiple scripted and unscripted projects, the first of which is a documentary feature from noted filmmaker R.J. Cutler (“The September Issue,” “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”) following baseball’s 2023 world series.
“I’ve always been drawn to the drama, high stakes, and emotion of baseball ever since I was kid in the bleachers of Dodger Stadium,” Oscar winner Howard told Variety. “These also happen to be the very same elements that make for a great movie or television show, which is why Brian, Imagine and I are so excited to be teaming up with Major League Baseball to bring more of their stories to life.”
MLB will participate in the deal through its eponymous studios label, which creates, produces and consults on original content with multi-platform media and licensing projects that span film, television, audio and digital. To date, they have launched titles like “Once Upon a Time in Queens” and “The Captain” on ESPN, “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” for HBO and “After Jackie,” a civil rights story set in ’60s baseball for the History network. ESPN Films recently announced an eight-part documentary series, “The Yankees Win,” produced in partnership with the label.
“Collaborating with Ron Howard and Imagine is a dream come true,” said Noah Garden, MLB’s chief revenue officer. “The opportunities that come with two premier global media companies partnering are limitless. Couple that with Ron’s passionate and vocal fandom for the game of baseball and we know we have a framework to produce unmatched content for fans to enjoy across a collection of platforms.”
The Cutler documentary promises to take a deep dive into all of the intersecting narratives, on and off the field, that surround the high stakes climax of America’s national pastime. Cutler will make the film through his production entity This Machine, set up at Sony Pictures Television.
Imagine’s library and ongoing slate is entrenched in sports, from the millennial favorite “Blue Crush” to cultural landmarks like “Friday Night Lights.” Similar-sized intellectual property deals from the company include recent pacts with The Washington Post and Warner Music Group.
I thought the one thing I’d be able to count on in L.A. would be that people like to eat dinner early. As usual, I was wrong. The other night, while making a reservation, a friend called me mid-booking and said, “I can only get us a table at 8:30. Is that okay with you?”
She knew the answer. There is no one I want to see badly enough to meet for dinner at 8:30 p.m. Immediately, I went online and looked up other times. “Hang on,” I said, “There’s a table at 5:15.” Naturally, she hadn’t revealed that option.
“I’m not eating at 5:15,” She snapped. “Sorry, Grandma.”
People don’t realize that’s not an insult for me.
Also, my grandmother ate dinner at 8:00 p.m. In fact, I come from a long line of late eaters. When I moved to Bali, Indonesia to be closer to my father (in his 80’s), one of the greatest joys we had was sharing meals. But agreeing on a time to eat was always an issue. He’d prefer to eat dinner at 9:00 PM, just as I would be going to sleep. Dinner was not our meal. Instead, I’d bicycle over to his house every morning so that we could have breakfast and as soon as breakfast was over, the negotiations began as to what time to meet for lunch. “I’ll meet at the place you choose, if we eat at the time I want…”
“Let’s meet in the middle,” he’d say. “That way we’re both happy.”
“Or we’re both miserable,” I’d reply.
Here are five things to do that don’t require digesting at midnight…
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When you think of Los Angeles, who doesn’t think of Shakespeare? The Shakespeare Center LA and the After Hours Theatre Company joined forces and created The Tempest: An Immersive Experience, a fully reimagined immersive performance based on William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.“
The production takes place on the mysterious island featured in the play. Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, lives on this island with his daughter Miranda after being usurped by his brother Antonio and left to die at sea a decade earlier. There’s more to it, but you get the idea.
As you enter “the experience,” you board the deck of a ship with your boarding pass, explore the vessel, play some games, solve puzzles — while sipping on handcrafted cocktails — until suddenly, there’s a massive storm. People really get into it. One woman next to me gasped when the thunder occurred. As though we were literally on the ship and about to be lost at sea. All of the actors are very committed to staying in character. One of them called me: m’lady. That hasn’t happened in a while.
On the way in, you’ll encounter the magical spirit, Ariel, who does Prospero’s bidding, before being seated and rather than passively watching a play, the idea is that the audience feels they are joining the narrative. This is a fun way to see “The Tempest” performed if you’ve never seen the play and/or if you’re a Shakespeare fanatic. No judgment if you’re not.
Photo by Brian Hashimoto
When: Through April 16
Location: Shakespeare Center LA | 1238 West First Street, Los Angeles CA 90026
Age requirement: 13+; must be 21+ with valid ID to consume alcohol
The Hollywood Bowl is a public park which means it’s open during the days to anyone when there are no performances. Every Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m., a group of strangers gather to run up and down the stairs. Yes, they do this by choice! It’s a free fitness group for all levels. I keep telling myself I’m going to try it – but who am I kidding? I’m curious about the variety of people who turn up for this though so it’s something to aim for. So far the only place I seem to be able to get to at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday is the spot in front of my coffee machine.
Photo by Jeff Palkevich
When: Saturday at 8:00 a.m.
Location: Hollywood Bowl | 2301 North Highland Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90068
In case you haven’t seen his insightful and hilarious HBO stand-up special “From Bleak to Dark” and in case you don’t listen to the landmark podcast “WTF with Marc Maron” which is now one of the most popular podcasts going (which I’m not saying because I was on it but I was), here’s your chance to see Marc Maron perform in person. His always reflective and intelligent perspective will provoke you to think and he’s a storyteller whose punchlines are worth waiting for. Maybe he’ll cover the fear of death and the implications of that on multiple levels. Obviously, we’re kindred spirits
Note: this performance is for next weekend so you have time to get tickets.
Photo by Getty
When: Friday, April 14 at 8 p.m.
Location: Largo at the Coronet | 366 N La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90048
Parking: Secure, attended parking is available next door at the Baker Building, 360 N La Cienega Blvd, for a cash fee. There is also street parking and valet options in the neighborhood
Housed in the open-air ground floor of the 1896 Homer Laughlin Building – a downtown landmark — this market with a variety of food stalls, feels particularly L.A. Maybe because it’s all under one roof, it reminds you that you’re in a multi-cultural city and it’s not as spread out as it seems. You can get cheese and produce and coffee and fresh meat but with 30 or more vendors selling ready-to-eat food, it’s best to dine in, sit on stools, and eat (breakfast, lunch or dinner) there. I met some friends for lunch before visiting The Broad Museum nearby. We all scattered to get our various meals and then reconvened. I had the vegan ramen, someone else had a burger, someone else had curryworst and we didn’t share.
Veronica Swift is a vibrant young jazz vocalist who according to the Wall Street Journal, “has a miraculous voice, musical ability and technique, as well as an innate gift for entertaining a crowd.” Now a Los Angeles resident, she’ll be appearing for two nights at the iconic Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood, where the vibe is a grown-up supper club with old world charm.
Past performers have included Dizzy Gillespie, Betty Carter, Ben Vereen and jazz legend….Tony Danza.
Photo by Getty
When: Friday, April 7 and Saturday, April 8 | 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Location: Catalina Bar & Grill | 6725 W. Sunset Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
Parking: Secure & gated self-parking is available directly behind the club in the building’s parking structure. The parking garage entrance is on McCadden Ave (at Sunset Blvd). The Parking Attendant and Building Security help to keep the garage secure. Parking is $8.00 per car, payable via Credit Card. Street and Metered parking is available.
April is here, and if you’re looking for some great new movies to stream, we’ve got you covered. This month there’s a slew of new releases and newly streaming library titles across Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+, and we’ve thumbed through all the new selections to single out the best of the best. Whether you’re looking to catch up on some recent new releases that are now streaming (like “Bros”) or want to know whether that new documentary (“Judy Blume Forever”) or Netflix original (“Chupa”) is worth watching, we guarantee you’ll find something worthwhile to watch in our curated selection.
Check out the best new movies to stream in April 2023 below.
“The Bourne Identity” and “The Bourne Supremacy”
Universal Pictures
Netflix – April 1
The “Bourne” trilogy still stands as one of the most influential franchises of the 21st century, as the gritty and handheld approach to the action in these films would spawn imitators for years to come. Director Doug Liman’s initial entry, “The Bourne Identity,” is a refreshingly grounded international thriller with Matt Damon as an assassin who’s lost his memory and is on the run. Paul Greengrass directed the two sequels – “Supremacy” and “Ultimatum” – which move the series closer to political thriller territory and are arguably all the better for it. – Adam Chitwood
“Inside Man”
Universal Pictures
Netflix – April 1
Spike Lee’s 2006 thriller “Inside Man” is one of the director’s best and most entertaining films. The story opens in the aftermath of a bank heist, with those taken hostage giving their interviews to police about what happened. The film then flashes back to portray the events as they unfold, with Denzel Washington playing the detective trying to talk down the robber and kidnapper (played by Clive Owen) who seems to be harboring some kind of secret. Mind games ensue, and this one keeps you guessing all the way up through the end. – Adam Chitwood
“Inception”
Warner Bros.
Netflix – April 1
If you’re in the mood to watch a mind-bending thriller, you can’t go wrong with Christopher Nolan’s 2010 blockbuster “Inception.” Written and directed by Nolan, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who is proficient in performing heists within the subconscious of individuals who are subdued. He’s offered one last job in exchange for his freedom, and assembles a crew to perform a task thought near-impossible — planting an idea inside someone’s head. Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, and Michael Caine co-star in this action-packed adventure with surprising emotional heft. – Adam Chitwood
“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields”
Hulu
Hulu – April 1
“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” charts the life and career of model and actress Brooke Shields, with the name taken from the controversial 1978 Louis Malle movie written by Polly Platt where Shields appeared, at age 12, fully nude. By using the name of that movie, it’s clear that filmmaker Lena Wilson (who also made the stunning “After Tiller,” a movie that is even more powerful now) and Shields are attempting to reclaim the title. If her agency was taken away so many years ago, now it is time to give it to the person who it should have belonged to all along. The two-part documentary initially debuted at Sundance and received rapturous reviews. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to watch. – Drew Taylor
“Lincoln”
DreamWorks Pictures
Hulu – April 1
Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is one of his best films, bar-none, and maybe even slightly underappreciated. This is not your traditional cradle-to-grave biopic. Instead, Spielberg’s adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” gets to the heart of the U.S. President by chronicling the last few months of his life as he battled to pass the 13th amendment. Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a phenomenal performance as a man wrestling with his own soul, and he’s surrounded by one of the best ensembles ever put to film – Sally Field, James Spader, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Hal Holbrook, Adam Driver, Jared Harris, Gloria Reuben and so many more. – Adam Chitwood
“Mission to Mars”
Disney
Hulu – April 1
Brian De Palma’s last studio movie, before cobbling together independently financed features, mostly in Europe, for the past couple of decades, was Disney’s first movie-based-on-a-theme-park experiment. Why they chose a nominally remembered attraction that had closed at both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World almost a decade earlier remains a point of confusion, but the film is a hoot. Don Cheadle plays an astronaut marooned on Mars after an exploratory mission goes wrong, with Gary Sinise leading a crew composed of Jerry O’Connell, Tim Robbins and Connie Nielsen, who venture out to the red planet to rescue their friend and colleague. De Palma has distanced himself in the years since the movie was released (in the terrific documentary “De Palma,” he says that he was filling in for a filmmaker who had already left the project, inheriting the cast and the script) but this is a De Palma joint through and through – many of his key collaborators are along for the ride (including editor Paul Hirsch, cinematographer Stephen Burum, and “The Untouchables” composer Ennio Morricone) and the movie is full of elegant long-takes and masterful suspense (including a moment where a main character dies). The movie is somewhat undone by iffy visual effects in the last act and quite possibly the worst alien design in the history of cinema, but up until that point it’s effective hokum of the highest order. Take this mission. – Drew Taylor
“Oblivion”
Universal Pictures
Peacock – April 1
Before Tom Cruise and Joseph Kosinski teamed for the mega-blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick,” they made “Oblivion,” an odd “daytime sci-fi” movie about the last man on Earth (Cruise), tasked with making sure marauding aliens don’t interfere with giant terraforming machines. (Yes, Cruise is playing WALL•E essential. And yes, it is excellent.) Recent Oscar nominee Andrea Riseborough plays Cruise’s partner and wife whose intentions remain obscured. And Morgan Freeman is the leader of a group of freedom fighters on the planet. Is “Oblivion” the most cohesive sci-fi spectacle you’ve ever seen? Probably not. But it is surely one of the most artful, with Kosinski’s video-art-installation aesthetic meshing perfectly with the movie’s odd tone (embroidered by a beautiful electronic score by French musician M83). By the end, it’s hard not to fall in love with “Oblivion,” even with its peaks and valleys, and it’s even easier to admire it for its bluster, energy and ambition. – Drew Taylor
“Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping”
Universal Pictures
Peacock – April 1
One of the funniest and best comedies of the last decade, “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” also features a killer soundtrack. Underseen and underrated upon release in 2016, the film hails from The Lonely Island trio and stars Andy Samberg as a current mega-popstar and former member of a Beastie Boys-like group whose latest album releases (and bombs) in the midst of a worldwide tour. The film is mockumentary in style like “This Is Spinal Tap,” but always embraces the absurd to hilarious results. Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, Maya Rudolph, Chris Redd, Tim Meadows, Bill Hader and Imogen Poots co-star. – Adam Chitwood
“Tangerine”
Magnolia Pictures
HBO Max– April 1
Before “The Florida Project” or “Red Rocket,” filmmaker Sean Baker burst onto the scene with his 2015 comedy “Tangerine” – shot entirely on an iPhone. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez stars as a trans sex worker living in Los Angeles who finds out that her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. While it looks like an indie and tackles some heavy material at times, the film has the tone and pacing of a raucous comedy, and is all the better for it. – Adam Chitwood
“The Long Riders”
United Artists
HBO Max – April 1
One of director Walter Hill’s greatest and most underrated movies, 1980’s “The Long Riders” is built around an intriguing gimmick that could have just as easily sunk the movie – in depicting groups of western outlaws, each of them brothers, Hill cast real-life brothers in the roles. James and Stacy Keach play Jesse and Frank James; David, Keith and Robert Carradine play Cole, Kim and Bob; Dennis and Randy Quaid play Ed and Clell Miller; and Christopher and Nicholas Guest play Charley and Robert Ford. Working with regular collaborators like cinematographer Ric Waite and composer Ry Cooder, Hill creates an expressive, expansive canvas and all of the real-life family members pull their weight in a very real way. And best of all, the movie runs a svelte 99 minutes. We love a big movie with a short runtime. – Drew Taylor
“Mud”
Lionsgate
HBO Max – April 1
Jeff Nichols is one of the most talented filmmakers working today and nowhere is this more evident than in “Mud,” a dramatic thriller about a pair of teenagers (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) who employ the title character (played by Matthew McConaughey), a criminal with a twinkle in his eye who is hiding out on an island in the middle of the Mississippi. Inspired by the works of Mark Twain (you can definitely tell), “Mud” features an all-star supporting cast of your favorite character actors, including Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker and Paul Sparks; plus Reese Witherspoon in an ego-free supporting role as Mud’s girlfriend. Gorgeously photographed and with a vibe all its own, “Mud” sweeps you up and doesn’t let you go. If you’ve never seen it, prepare to be enchanted. If you already have, maybe it’s time for a re-watch. – Drew Taylor
“Basic Instinct 2”
MGM
Paramount+ – April 1
The original “Basic Instinct” was a sensation when it was released in 1992; it was a lightning storm for controversy and a box office behemoth. The sequel, which came out more than a decade later and was really only made because of a very expensive lawsuit star Sharon Stone had filed, went over like a lead balloon. Several directors flirted with the project (including John McTiernan and David Cronenberg), before it was handed to Scottish filmmaker Michael Canton-Jones. (Canton-Jones later admitted that it was a “painful experience” and that he signed on because he was “completely broke and had to take anything that came in. ‘Basic Instinct 2’ was this poisoned chalice that had been passed around and eventually it arrived at my door.”) And yet, there’s a certain fun to be had with “Basic Instinct 2,” which is even better if you make sure to include its discarded subtitle “Risk Addiction.” Stone is absolutely having the time of her life, snarling all of her lines (many of them falling into the campy realm of “so bad they’re good”). This time her character is in London and being scrutinized by a stuffy psychiatrist (a completely out-of-his-depth David Morrissey) and surrounded by a cast of colorful supporting players including Charlotte Rampling, David Thewlis and Irma Varma. It might have been a nightmare to make and a complete bust at the box office, but “Basic Instinct 2” is ripe for rediscovery and reevaluation. It’s a future midnight movie classic worthy of the pantheon. We assure you. – Drew Taylor
“Heaven’s Gate”
United Artists
Paramount+ – April 1
Few box office misfires are so devastating that they bring down an entire studio and ruin the reputation of one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation. But, incredibly, “Heaven’s Gate” did just that. Loosely based on the Johnson County Wars, whose archetypal-bordering-on-mythic framework (pitting homesteaders against cattlemen) also inspired classic westerns like “Shane” and “The Virginian,” the shoot was notoriously difficult and went long and overbudget, with principal photography lasting for nearly an entire year. Much of this had to do with the exacting (some would say demanding) perfectionism of writer/director Michael Cimino, coming off the Oscar-winning smash “The Deer Hunter.” When the movie was finally released, it was a monumental disappointment and was pulled from theaters, re-edited, and released back into theaters the following spring. And while it gained notoriety, first on the cutting-edge premium cable channel Z Channel and then, in 2013, when the full version was restored (now clocking in at 216-minutes) and reappraised as an unsung masterpiece. The pain of the production (which included criminal allegations of animal abuse) and the ensuing fallout from the film’s release (it virtually killed United Artists and has been cited as the reason studios wrestled control from filmmakers, as was the norm in the 1970s) has done much to overshadow was a genuinely impressive, overwhelming experience watching “Heaven’s Gate” is. Was it a lousy movie that deserved, for so many years, to be buried (and then mocked)? Or was it a misunderstood classic that is finally getting the attention it deserves? The only way to have an opinion is to watch. – Drew Taylor
“Lifeforce”
Cannon Films
Paramount+ – April 1
After “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper made two big studio horror films (“The Funhouse” for Universal and “Poltergeist” for MGM/UA), he was courted by Cannon Films, the somewhat dubious label behind such classics as “The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood,” “Enter the Ninja” and “Death Wish II” (among many, many others). They offered Hooper a lucrative three-picture deal, with the only string attached being that he had to make a “Texas Chain Saw” sequel for Cannon (which he did, in the most subversive way possible). The first (and best) of the Hooper/Cannon movies was “Lifeforce,” which Hooper gleefully described as his “70 mm Hammer movie.” Based on the novel “The Space Vampires” by Colin Wilson, Steve Railsback plays an astronaut who unwittingly wakes up an ancient evil (in the form of a very scary, frequently naked Mathilda May) and then must try and stop her from destroying the planet. Lively and colorful, “Lifeforce” features a terrific score by Henry Mancini, eye-popping visual effects by John Dykstra and a witty script co-written by “Alien” screenwriter Dan O’Bannon. It’s just so much fun. – Drew Taylor
“Out of Time”
MGM
Paramount+ – April 1
What a great thriller. When Denzel Washington and his “Devil in a Blue Dress” director Carl Franklin decided to reteam for another thriller, they went for “Out of Time,” a terrific, underrated thriller that moves like a freight train and is an absolute blast. Washington plays the morally compromised chief of police in a small town in the Florida Keys. His world spins out of control when he decides to steal money from the evidence locker to pay for the medical treatment for the local woman he’s having an affair with (played by Sanna Lathan). If things couldn’t get more complicated, the crime is being investigated by his ex-wife (Eva Mendes), who he still has a flirty, flinty relationship with. And, oh yeah, the DEA is involved too. This is true edge-of-your-seat stuff, with each minute in the movie’s 106-minute runtime more thrilling than the last and Washington providing a performance that reminds you why he’s one of the last remaining movie stars. This movie is, like a hurricane, a true tropical tour de force. It’ll blow you away. – Drew Taylor
“The Godfather” Trilogy
Paramount Pictures
Paramount+ – April 1
One of the greatest film sagas ever made, you can stream the entire “Godfather” trilogy on Paramount+ right now – including Francis Ford Coppola’s reworked version of “The Godfather Part III,” now titled “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.” All three films are remastered and looking better than ever, and the only question you need to ask yourself is whether “The Godfather” or “The Godfather Part II” is better. – Adam Chitwood
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
Universal Pictures
Prime Video – April 1
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is many things – the debut feature from the wonderful Amy Heckerling; Cameron Crowe’s first produced screenplay; an astounding collection of early performances from future powerhouses like Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Forest Whitaker; perhaps the greatest non-John Hughes teen movie of the 1980’s – but the thing that really should make you want to watch (or re-watch) the movie is its extensive, era-appropriate documentation of the American mall. These days, it’s hard to find a living mall, much less one that is packed to the gills with teenagers eating food, shopping in retail locations and going to the movies. What makes “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” even more special is the mall where they shot the movie, the Sherman Oaks Galleria (also utilized in movies like “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “Commando” and “Chopping Mall”), was destroyed and largely remodeled following the Northridge earthquake that shook the San Fernando Valley in 1994. “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is a time machine to an earlier, more innocent, more mall-filled time. And other stuff. – Drew Taylor
“The Sisters Brothers”
Annapurna Pictures
Prime Video – April 1
Talk about a movie that nobody saw and even fewer people talked about. It’s not because it didn’t have stars, since it’s cast includes John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed and Rutger Hauer. Nor is it because the filmmakers behind the movie were obscure, since it was directed by the Palme d’Or-winning director of “A Prophet” and “Rust and Bone,” making his English-language debut, and was produced by Megan Ellison’s Annapurna (sort of the proto-A24) and Michael De Luca (who now runs Warner Bros. Pictures). And yet this darkly comedic western, about a pair of lowlife brothers (Reilly and Phoenix) who are sent to track down a scientist (Ahmed) who has concocted a formula that can help prospectors find gold, didn’t get any attention whatsoever and failed miserably at the box office. It’s a shame too because it’s absolutely stunning, switching wisely between tones and styles and genuinely upending the genre in a way that only a foreign filmmaker probably could. It’s also one of the most beautiful-looking westerns you’re ever likely to see, with a terrific score by the great Alexandre Desplat. When you watch it you’ll think, How have I never heard of this before? Well, don’t say we didn’t give you a heads-up. – Drew Taylor
“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
StudioCanal
Prime Video – April 1
If you’re in the mood for a smart and brainy spy thriller, look no further than “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.” Based on the John le Carre novel of the same name, the 2011 film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, right-hand man to head of British intelligence, and follows the ins and outs of an espionage operation gone wrong in the early 1970s. This is not a movie you can watch passively, nor would you want to. And a stacked ensemble cast of Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong and Simon McBurney serves as further reason to check this one out. – Adam Chitwood
“Bros”
Universal Pictures
Prime Video – April 4
If you missed Billy Eichner’s rom-com “Bros” when it hit theaters or was streaming on Peacock, the film comes to Amazon Prime Video this month. Directed and co-written by “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Neighbors” filmmaker Nicholas Stoller, “Bros” stars Eichner as a man who has recently accepted a position as curator for a new National LGBTQ+ History Museum in New York City, and is struggling to find love in the big city. He strikes up a hot-and-cold relationship with a jock-y guy named Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) and your usual rom-com story follows with solid jokes and a lot of heart along the way. – Adam Chitwood
“Chupa”
Netflix
Netflix – April 7
In the 1990s a young boy (played by Evan Whitten) is visiting his grandfather (Demián Bichir) in Mexico when he forms an unlikely friendship with a Chupacabra – a “goat-sucking” creature in Mexican mythology. As it turns out, this Chupacabra, who the boy names Chupa, isn’t a fearsome, vampire-like abomination but an adorable, furry, feathered creature, like a dog with wings. (A connection is made between the creature and alebrijes, the monsters in Mexican folk-art that seem to be made of disparate animals.) Clearly borrowing from ‘80s kid-befriendsly-nonhuman-creature classics like “E.T.” and “Gremlins” (“Gremlins” writer Chris Columbus produced the movie), with ‘80s icon Christian Slater basically playing a modified version of Peter Coyote’s character from “E.T.,” “Chupa” is still charming and affecting. The kids give solid performances, and the creature is well-designed and emotionally involving; you care about his plight and that he is returned to his family (of bigger, scarier Chupacabras). Directed by Jonás Cuarón, the son of Alfonso Cuarón and the co-writer of “Gravity,” “Chupa” is also gifted with more visual wit and ingenuity than most family films released these days. If you give “Chupa” a chance, you’ll be rewarded. – Drew Taylor
“Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always”
Netflix
Netflix – April 19
Multiple original “Power Rangers” actors return to reprise their roles in this new original film, although sadly Amy Jo Johnson (the Pink Ranger) and the late Jason David Frank (Tommy) are not in the film. The synopsis is as follows: When Rita Repulsa returns, the Power Rangers are the only ones who can stop her. But after 30 years, can the team still be the heroes the world needs? – Adam Chitwood
“Judy Blume Forever”
Prime Video
Prime Video – April 21
Whether you’re a Judy Blume diehard or barely even know who she is, the documentary “Judy Blume Forever” is an enlightening must-watch. The film – which features interviews with various authors and notable personalities in addition to Blume herself – recounts how Judy Blume made waves and ruffled feathers with her realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be a young girl. Blume recounts the various controversies her books drummed up while so many current authors and voices explain just how formative and influential Blume’s approach to storytelling was for their own careers. – Adam Chitwood
“The Hateful Eight” Extended Version
TWC
Netflix – April 25
Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” had one of the most bungled releases of all time. It was put out by the Weinstein Company, then floundering after a series of costly failures, which didn’t have the money to properly market or promote the movie. And it went out in theaters, first in a longer “roadshow” version in 70mm venues (matching the way that it was shot) and then in a more condensed, all-audiences version that happened to be released around the same time as a little movie called “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which was bidding for the same large-format screens that “The Hateful Eight” wanted to utilize. (Guess which movie won out?) And it’s a shame too because that roadshow version is so good and has never been properly released. As an alternative, though, you can watch a Netflix miniseries version of Tarantino’s misunderstood masterpiece, which is slightly longer than the roadshow cut and released in four chapters. It’s the perfect way to watch the movie, a pitch-black locked-door western in the tradition of “Ten Little Indians” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” as you’re able to luxuriate in the whip-smart script, the subtleties of the performances (led by Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell) and Tarantino’s widescreen direction and staging. If we can’t ever get the roadshow version, this is the next best thing, especially as we barrel toward QT’s retirement. – Drew Taylor
“Peter Pan & Wendy”
Disney
Disney+ – April 28
Around the time that 2016’s remake of “Pete’s Dragon” was released, Disney announced that co-writer/director David Lowery was on the hook for another high-profile live-action remake, this time of 1953’s animated classic “Peter Pan.” And now “Peter Pan & Wendy” is finally here. Starring Alexander Molony as Peter Pan and Ever Anderson (Milla Jovovich’s daughter) as Wendy, with Jude Law as Captain Hook, this new take on the animated original (and the source material by J.M. Barrie) looks to include many of the same elements that made the original versions so special while also making room for new story beats and additional visual flourishes. Also, thankfully, Lowery hired an actual indigenous actress (Alyssa Wapanatahk) to play Tiger Lily. (We’re guessing “What Makes the Red Man Red” is being left off the soundtrack this time around.) Given that Lowery, already a talented filmmaker when “Pete’s Dragon” was released, recently made the medieval masterpiece “The Green Knight,” we’re guessing that “Peter Pan & Wendy” will be plenty special. – Drew Taylor
Questlove, Dawn Richard and a range of other musicians, writers and critics share their favorites from the experimental pianist, organist and bandleader’s wide-ranging catalog.
Background Image: A colorful animated illustration of a musician with a loose resemblance to Sun Ra playing a keyboard with one hand raised and their eyes closed. Planets float in the background.
If recent reports are to be believed, Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone and Sarvari Wagh are considered for Hrithik Roshan’s War 2.
YRF’s War 2 has been making the headlines lately and if recent reports are to be believed, Alia Bhatt is all set to join Hrithik Roshan in the spy thriller. Her RRR co-star Jr NTR is also reportedly on board for War 2. Not just that, Deepika Padukone and Sarvari Wagh, too, are in the race. It will be interesting to see who makes the cut as Deepika is already a part of YRF’s spy-universe. “The consideration and the zeroing down on the three names that are being considered for the female lead’s role has created quite a buzz in the YRF office,” ETimes quoted their source as saying.
Meanwhile, as per a Pinkvilla report, NTR will be locking horns with Hrithik’s Kabir in the film, hinting that the Telugu superstar will be seen as an antagonist in the film. It has also been claimed that an action-packed face-off has been penned for the film which will be a treat to Hrithik and Tarak’s fans.
On the other hand, reports are also doing the rounds of Ayan Mukerji directing War 2. The filmmaker announced the release dates of Brahmastra parts 2 and 3 recently and also informed that he will be directing a different film in between. This added more fuels to the rumours of him directing the YRF film.
Following this, News18.com reached out to Ayan Mukerji for his reaction to the speculations. Ayan neither accepted nor denied the rumours and simply smiled. If this deal works out, this will mark Ayan Mukerji’s first film in YRF’s growing Spy Universe. Ayan is one of the most successful filmmakers in Bollywood with movies like Wake Up Sid, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and Brahmastra to his credit.
Srijita Sen is constantly curious about figuring out the meaning of films, music, life and everything in between. With a great love for 2000s Bollywoo…Read More
Jen Shah’s attorney has moved to drop the reality TV star and prison inmate as her client for allegedly racking up a hefty debt.
Shah, who starred in “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” and who is currently imprisoned at a federal facility in Bryan, Texas, allegedly owes her attorney $50,000 in unpaid fees and $74,422.95 in unpaid expenses, totaling $124,422.95.
Shah’s attorney, Priya Chaudhry, filed court documents Thursday, obtained by People, that claimed that Shah was falling short on promises she made to pay that outstanding debt.
Chaudhry filed a motion last month requesting to withdraw as counsel for the TV personality, arguing that Shah had failed to pay her firm and was in breach of their contract, the court documents say.
Chaudhry represented Shah when she faced charges of carrying out a nearly decade-long nationwide telemarketing scam. Shah pleaded guilty last year.
“Shah and her husband Sharrieff Shah repeatedly promised to pay these outstanding amounts, and the firm continued to provide services, relying on the written engagement with Shah and the promises of her husband,” Chaudhry stated in March 24 court papers.
The law firm claims they made several unsuccessful collections attempts and that Shah was notified of her debts last month while incarcerated, according to the documents.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Kiersten Ann Fletcher said at the sentencing hearing in July that Shah had engaged in the scheme from 2012 to 2021, conspiring to sell illegitimate services to older and computer-illiterate people.
Shah admitted she was aware of the fraud during the hearing, saying, “I knew this was wrong and that many people were harmed, and I’m so sorry.”
She also pledged to pay more than $6.6 million in restitution and agreed to a forfeiture of $6.5 million, 30 luxury items and 78 counterfeit luxury items.
Per the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ inmate database, Shah’s 6 ½-year sentence was reduced, and she will now be released on Aug. 30, 2028 — a year earlier than her under her original sentence.
After being absent from the MCU since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, fans got their first look at Elizabeth Debicki’s Ayesha as she returns in the upcoming threequel.
For those who don’t remember, Ayesha is the high priestess of the Sovereign, who vowed her revenge against the Guardians after they turned their back on her during a mission she hired them to complete.
The latest trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (via @Cryptic4KQual on Twitter) revealed a first look at Elizabeth Debicki’s Ayesha in her MCU return.
Debicki’s high priestess can be seen sporting her signature golden skin and locks.
Empire released another image of Ayesha from Vol. 3, where she is seen seated in the Sovereign homeworld with Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock:
Empire
Ayesha plays an integral part in Adam Warlock’s role in the movie, who is being portrayed “in his infancy” according to Poulter:
“James [Gunn] and I discussed the idea of playing him, at least in this initial phase, in his infancy… As a young person entering the world, trying to develop his moral compass. There was a lot of comedy in that, but also some genuine pathos, some dramatic meat on the bone.”
Ayesha is only in the trailer briefly, but gets a line off in her brief time on-screen, saying, “these Guardians are more powerful than you think.”
It is unclear who Debicki’s interstellar antagonist is talking to in this scene, but it is likely either Adam Warlock or Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary.
Marvel Studios
Seeing as the actress appears to be in the golden chamber fans last saw her in Vol. 2, it seems likely that she is having a heart-to-heart with Poulter‘s Mr. Warlock, but Iwuji‘s GOTG 3 villain could very well be there also.
Elizabeth Debicki’s Marvel Villain Connection
Marvel Studios
While upon announcement, many believed Adam Warlock would serve as the main antagonist for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3, it was later revealed that instead, Chukwudi Iwuji’s High Evolutionary would be the primary big bad.
So many may be wondering – how do the Sovereign, Warlock, and Elizabeth Debicki’s Ayesha play into the threequel’s story?
Well, they are all likely connected. Adam Warlock and the High Evolutionary have a comic connection that could be explored in the upcoming blockbuster.
In the comics, the High Evolutionary is actually the one who dubs Will Poulter’s character, Adam, so perhaps Ayesha and the Sovereign’s golden boy could at some point come under the employ of the High Evolutionary.
On the page, the High Evolutionary uses the Soul Stone to help craft Counter-Earth, with the Marvel villain eventually granting the stone to Adam Warlock after the planet is taken over by an experiment gone wrong in Man-Beast. From there the High Evolutionary tasks Adam to reclaim the planet.
The MCU will probably tug on this narrative thread, with the High Evolutionary coming to Elizabeth Debicki’s Marvel villain for help to reclaim his world, and Ayesha only agreeing if he can also take out the Guardians while doing it.
This would make sense as to why the team ends up on Counter-Earth, and why Debicki’s character can be seen giving a warning about the team in the recently released teaser.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 comes to theaters on Friday, May 5.
Are you prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice? Dead By Daylight: The Board Game from Level 99 Games reimagines the massively popular survival horror video game as an asymmetrical survival horror experience like nothing else. Becca Scott is joined by special guests Hale Grande, Whitney Moore, and Michelle Nguyen-Bradley in a thrilling and chilling episode of Game the Game as they try to appease the monstrous entity and survive the night in equal measure. This video is made in paid partnership with Level 99 Games. Learn more about Dead By Daylight: The Board Game here: https://level99games.com/pages/dead-by-daylightOpens in new tab
“The London-based (the UK) video games publisher PQube and Barcelona -based (Spain) indie games developer Petoons Studio, are today very thrilled and glad to announce that their hand-drawn ratoidvania “Curse of the Sea Rats”, is now digitally and physically available for PC (via Steam) and consoles (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch).” – Jonas Ek, TGG.
Once again, Visions du Réel’s juries gather leading international filmmakers and film professionals. The Festival is very pleased to welcome them to Nyon to discover the films and projects and to award the 33 prizes given by our partners. The Award Ceremonies will take place on 26th April 2023 (Industry) and 28th April 2023 (Programme).
Florence Almozini – David Epiney – Kleber Mendonça Filho
The Jury for the International Feature Film Competition will judge an international competition of 14 films, including 12 world premieres and 2 international premieres. The Grand Jury Prize is offered by la Mobilière (CHF 20 000) and the Special Jury Award is funded by the Région de Nyon (CHF 10 000).
Leonardo Bigazzi – Michelle Carey – Elena López Riera
The Jury will deliberate on 15 films, including 13 world premieres and 2 international premieres, and present the Jury Prize (CHF 10 000 offered by the Canton of Vaud) and the Special Jury Award (CHF 5 000) by la Société des Hôteliers de la Côte.
Anne Delseth – Francesca Mazzoleni – Eugenie Michel-Villette
The Jury will award the prizes to a selection of 12 films, 11 of which will be presented in world premiere and one in international premier. The Jury Prize is offered by SRG SSR (CHF 15 000) and the Special Jury Award is offered by SSA/Suissimage (CHF 10 000).
The three Jury members will choose among 32 films, including 28 world premieres, 3 international premieres and 1 European premiere, and present the Jury Prize for the Best Medium Length Film offered by Clinique de Genolier (CHF 6 000) and the Jury Prize for the Best Short Film, offered by Fondation Gobelet (CHF 5 000). The Youth Jury will award a Special Prize to a Medium Length Film offered by Ecole Moser (CHF 4 000) and a Special Prize to a Short Film, worth CHF 2 500 from Mémoire Vive.
Nicolas Besson – Linda Dombrovszky – Garance Hayat – Mohammad Rezaeian
The Interreligious Jury will award a feature film of the International Competition that sheds light on issues dealing with the meaning of life (CHF 5’000).
The Perception Change Award, offered by the Director General of the Geneva UN with the support of the Diplomatic Club, awards a film that sheds light on the current issues that will define the world of tomorrow (CHF 5’000).
The projects invited to participate in the 3 VdR–Industry activities (VdR–Pitching, VdR–Work In Progress and VdR–Rough Cut Lab) will have two international Juries of choice to award the numerous prizes offered by our precious partners. These projects are competing for the visions sud est Award, The Party Film Sales Award, the RTS Award, the Lightdox Award, the Tënk Award and the Unifrance Doc Award, among others. The Award Ceremony for the VdR–Industry projects will take place on 26 April 2023.
Michael Leon, long time music industry executive and husband of 42 West founder and preeminent publicist Leslee Dart, passed away on April 2nd. He was 76 years old.
After joining famed independent label A&M Records in 1976, he rose to Senior Vice President and Head of East Coast Operations. Known for his gregarious management style and his ear for emerging talent, he was instrumental in the development of the careers of Suzanne Vega, Joan Armitrading, The Police, Squeeze, and Supertramp, among many others.
Leon also served as a Vice President of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, the Head of International for EMI Records Group, and President of independent label Hybrid Records.
After marrying Dart in 1996, he was often seen by her side at gala events around the world, embracing the role of being, as he often called himself, “Mr. Dart” (he even changed his email name to “mistadart”).
Dart founded 42 West in 2004 after rising to prominence as President at PMK. Her clients included Tom Hanks, Martin Scorsesee, Francis Ford Coppola, Nicole Kidman, Darren Aronofsky, and Meryl Streep. She oversaw the sale of 42 West, a company she built from two initial employees into one of the biggest PR businesses in Hollywood, to Dolphin Entertainment in 2017, and she retired from the business in 2021.
In addition to Dart, Leon is survived by his two sons, noted filmmaker Adam Leon (Gimme The Loot, Tramps) and Matthew Leon, currently an employee in the CAA music department.
The news comes just after star Sarah Shahi openly slammed “gimmicky” writing on Season 2 of the show.
Netflix’s “Sex/Life” has been taken off life support. The erotic drama series will not return for a third season at the streamer, a Netflix spokesperson confirmed to IndieWire.
The news comes just over a month after the second season of the show debuted on March 2. The show, created by Stacy Rukeyser, premiered its first season in June 2021. A spokesperson for Netflix told IndieWire that the service is proud of the cast and crew’s work on the show, and that the second and now final season brought the show’s storyline to a natural ending.
Loosely inspired by the novel “44 Chapters About 4 Men” by BB Easton, “Sex/Life” starred Sarah Shahi as Billie Connelly, a housewife and mother of two in the suburbs of Connecticut. Struggling with a midlife crisis, Billie reconnects with Brad (Adam Demos), her music producer ex-boyfriend from her days as a party girl, creating tension in her marriage with strait-laced investment banker Cooper (Mike Vogel). Margaret Odette, Cleo Anthony, Darius Homayoun, Craig Bierko, Wallis Day, Jonathan Sadowski, Joyce Rivera, and Li Jun Li also starred in the series.
Related
Related
“Sex/Life” debuted with a lot of buzz around its first season, mainly due to its explicit content and full-frontal male nudity. Its first season topped Netflix’s global English TV ratings chart for two weeks — it’s the first show ever to top the charts due to Netflix making the lists public shortly after the show’s premiere. Season 2 was less successful, peaking at No. 2 behind “Outer Banks” Season 3 and falling completely off the charts after four weeks.
Just this week, Shahi openly criticized Season 2’s writing in an interview for the “Not Skinny But Not Fat” podcast. Shahi said she “struggled with the material” for the show’s sophomore installment, calling the writing “more gimmicky.”
“I definitely did not have the support that I did in the first season from the people involved in the show,” Shahi said on the podcast. “It became a much different thing for me — and I’m not afraid to say that. That’s part of what I do. I’m not always going to get along or agree with a filmmaker. I’m not always going to like what I have to do or say. But that’s my job, to make it believable. I’m never going to work for Netflix again now after saying all this. But I can’t lie.”
Before “Sex/Life’s” cancellation became official, Shahi was cast in a new pilot for ABC and 20th Television, a legal soap titled “Judgment,” from former “Charmed” showrunner Joey Falco.
In addition to creating the series for Netflix, Rukeyser show-ran and executive produced with Jordan Hawley and J. Miles Dale. The series was a production of De Milo Films and Little Ruke.
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.
Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:
2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or TV Movie
Dominique Fishback in “Swarm”
Warrick Page/Prime Video
Weekly Commentary: Two years after Elizabeth Olsen landed a deserved nomination for her turn as Wanda Maximoff in Marvel’s “WandaVision,” she’s back in the race again this season with a new, more challenging role.
Olsen, 34, will be a likely contender, even a possible front-runner for her upcoming work as housewife Candy Montgomery in HBO’s limited crime drama “Love & Death.”
Based on a true story, Olsen has been garnering industry respect and adoration fore more than a decade. Under the guidance of 11-time Emmy winning writer David E. Kelley (most recent win was for “Big Little Lies”) and eight-time nominated director Lesli Lanka Glatter (“Mad Men” and “Homeland”), Olsen could have what it takes to break into the race that has only one assurance thus far — Jessica Chastain for Showtime’s “George & Tammy,” who won the SAG Award back in February.
Another potential late-comer is Dominique Fishback in dark thriller, “Swarm” from creators Donald Glover and Janine Nabers, and Prime Video. As Dre, a young woman who grows increasingly obsessed with a pop star, Fishback has been showing the depth of her talent no matter the size of the role. Shown by her Oscar-snubbed performance in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” she turned quite a few heads during her stint on “The Deuce” and her work in last year’s “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.” Hopefully, TV Academy members will give the series a proper shake.
At the moment, it seems unlikely we’ll see this category cross the threshold of 60 submissions, which would yield six nominees. That will make this race even more competitive with acclaimed performers from limited series such as FX’s “Fleishman is in Trouble” with Lizzy Caplan and Apple’s “Five Days at Memorial” with Vera Farmiga. In addition, they’ll be some TV movie leading ladies vying for attention including Amber Midthunder in the science fiction sequel “Prey” and possibly even Jennifer Lopez, who does what she always does best in Amazon’s “Shotgun Wedding.”
Emmy Nominations voting runs from June 15-26. The Primetime Emmy nominations will be announced on July 12. Check back every Thursday for the latest updates. All information is preliminary and is subject to change.
GUEST ACTING, VOICE-OVER | SHORT FORM | DOCUMENTARY | MUSIC | ANIMATED |
About the Primetime Emmy Awards
The Primetime Emmy Awards, better known as the Emmys, are given out by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). Since 1949, the awards have recognized excellence in American primetime television programming. They are divided into three classes – Primetime Emmy Awards, the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards (honors artisan achievements), and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards (recognizes significant engineering and technological contributions). The typical eligibility period is between June 1 and May 31 of any given year. The Television Academy comprises over 25,000 members, representing 30 professional peer groups, including performers, directors, producers, art directors, artisans, and executives.
The Jonas Brothers pander to America’s heartland with a song about Waffle House, and in the process, they humiliate themselves. Over glistening yacht rock with yassified pop sheen, the trio describe the iconic 24-hour breakfast chain as an after-hours place of healing: “No, don’t get stressed, it’s gon’ get figured out/Oh, deep conversations at the Waffle House,” Nick Jonas reassures, while a choir chimes in with praise-Jesus harmonies. “Hey naw” is the brothers’ folksy ad-lib of choice, as if they are not literally from New Jersey.
Let’s be real: After a certain hour, no words of reconciliation are uttered in front of a dead-eyed Waffle House waitress. The dining establishment is where bold truths are hurled with screamed expletives, or just where chairs are thrown. “Kid Rock Gets Probation in Waffle House Fight,” reads an Associated Press headline from 2008; it did not, as the Jonases would suggest, “get figured out” that time. Are there examples of people hashing out their differences over hashbrowns smothered and covered? Almost certainly. But by and large, those moments are for daytime diner softies like the Jonas boys, who are not duking it out late at night but singing “la la la” beatifically toward the rising sun.
In “The First Step,” we follow progressive activist Van Jones as forges an unlikely alliance with Jared Kushner in the Trump administration to pass criminal justice reform. The film-making brothers, Brandon and Lance Kramer show how political coalitions are hard to win and easy to lose.
The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) apologized today for using an image of concentration camp Auschwitz in a video hyping a match.
The WWE video used the camp image with audio of wrestler Dominik Mysterio pretending to be a criminal incarcerated in the facility.
“We had no knowledge of what was depicted,” said a WWE statement issued Friday. “As soon as we learned, it was removed immediately. We apologize for this error.”
The images do not appear in YouTube replays. The image showed barbed wire fences and guard towers at the concentration camp.
The WWE recently announced its acquisition by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) parent Endeavor. The merger of the entities would create one of the world’s largest sports and entertainment companies, with a combined valuation of $21 billion.
LOS ANGELES — Matt Taibbi, who was chosen by Twitter owner Elon Musk to write segments of the controversial “Twitter Files,” announced Friday that he’s quitting the platform to protest new restrictions to links to Substack, a rival newsletter and social media platform where Taibbi is one of the most popular contributors.
The split comes just days after Substack announced that it was starting a new service, Substack Notes, that appears to be a Twitter-like platform.
“It turns out Twitter is upset about the new Substack Notes feature, which they see as a hostile rival,” Taibbi wrote in a Substack post he titled “The Craziest Friday Ever,” adding: “I’m staying at Substack. You’ve all been great to me, as has the management of this company. Beginning early next week I’ll be using the new Substack Notes feature (to which you’ll all have access) instead of Twitter, a decision that apparently will come with a price as far as any future Twitter Files reports are concerned.”
In a tweet, Taibbi also announced his planned departure from Twitter. Earlier, @BigTechAlert, an account that monitors Twitter activity between Silicon Valley and media leaders, announced that Musk’s Twitter account had unfollowed Taibbi.
The split is an ironic development given Taibbi’s role in the “Twitter Files,” Musk’s attempt to expose alleged collusion between previous Twitter management and the federal government to censor conservatives.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Taibbi also did not respond to a request for comment. (Disclosure: This reporter has a free Substack newsletter.)
Friday’s events were the culmination of two days of turmoil between the two Silicon Valley platforms. On Wednesday, Substack announced that it would be releasing Notes, which looks like Twitter and functions almost identically to it. The platform had been testing it for weeks, wooing high-profile figures away from Twitter.
On Thursday, Substack writers discovered that they were no longer able to embed tweets in their Substack posts. Writers who tried were met with the message, “Twitter has unexpectedly restricted access to embedding tweets in Substack posts.”
On Friday morning, Twitter began blocking users from retweeting, liking or engaging with posts that contained links to Substack articles. Users also could not pin posts containing links to Substack to the top of their profiles. On Friday evening, Twitter began marking links to Substack as “unsafe.”
Even Substack’s corporate Twitter account was restricted, with users reporting that they were unable to retweet or quote-tweet the handle’s posts.
Twitter had been a primary driver of traffic and growth for many large Substack writers, and many independent journalists were left reeling from the news Friday. Emily Atkin, who runs a Substack covering climate-related news called Heated and joined the platform in 2019, wrote a scathing post on Musk’s decision, accusing him of censorship.
“Hundreds of independent climate publications like HEATED can no longer effectively share their work on Twitter because of Musk — who seemingly only did this out of retribution after Substack launched a Twitter-like feature of its own,” she wrote.
In March, Substack announced that the platform had surpassed 35 million active newsletter subscriptions across the platform and that readers have paid writers more than $300 million dollars through Substack. The top 10 writers on Substack make about $25 million annually combined, the service has said. Substack takes a 10 percent cut of all subscription earnings from writers on the platform.
“Substack is part of a seismic shift in the media economy that gives more power to writers and … creators,” Substack co-founders Chris Best, Jairaj Sethi and Hamish McKenzie wrote in an online statement about Twitter’s new restrictions.
“Writers deserve the freedom to share links to Substack or anywhere else,” the three co-founders said in a statement to The Washington Post. “This abrupt change is a reminder of why writers deserve a model that puts them in charge, that rewards great work with money, and that protects the free press and free speech. Their livelihoods should not be tied to platforms where they don’t own their relationship with their audience, and where the rules can change on a whim.”
In December, Musk temporarily banned links to all other social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and Mastodon, threatening to suspend users who used the platform to promote their accounts on other networks. “Twitter should be easy to use, but no more relentless free advertising of competitors,” Musk tweeted at the time.
He quickly rolled back the policy after backlash from large creators and the discovery that such a rule could violate European law.
That same month, Musk shut down Twitter’s Substack-like newsletter platform, Revue. Twitter purchased Revue in January 2021, and thousands of writers leveraged the service to monetize their Twitter followings and integrate their newsletter posts into their Twitter content. After Musk shut it down, many of Revue’s most popular newsletter writers moved to Substack.
“I’ve been so disheartened by what Elon has done to this platform that I used to get so much value out of, it’s clear that they’re very scared,” said Casey Newton, a technology journalist and founder of Platformer, a newsletter that started on Revue but moved to Substack in 2020. “They see that people have other options and they’re starting to use those options, and they want to make that more difficult for people. I think they’re going to find what other social platforms have found, which is that platforms are stronger when they let people move freely between them.”
Twitter generally is considered journalists’ preferred social platform, because of its reputation as a breaking-news hub and the role it plays in the world of politics. Some wondered Friday whether that will continue.
“I wouldn’t have a livelihood as an independent journalist if it wasn’t for Twitter,” Atkin, the climate journalist, said in an interview. “I spent 10 years building a platform as a journalist, and when I finally struck out on my own, that community is what I used to build my audience. I’ll be okay. I already have this audience. But I hoped this would be a path for other independent journalists to create reader-funded journalism, and it’s disheartening to see that taken away over what appears to be a childish revenge plot.”
Several high-profile journalists have already begun to embrace Substack Notes. Judd Legum, who publishes a Substack called Popular Information, which covers politics, said, “I think I’m going to use Notes more because the arbitrary nature of Twitter’s decision-making since Musk took over makes me question whether it’s worth the time investing in that platform.”
Elle Griffin, a novelist and journalist who operates two Substack newsletters, one covering business and one featuring her fiction writing, quit Twitter in the fall after Substack debuted its chat feature.
“At the time it was a lightweight Twitter replacement,” she said. “I think the problem all these Twitter replacements have is getting users, but there are so many Substack writers who already have humongous audiences, so the second Substack launches Notes there’s going to be a struggle.”
– English Audio Description
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