Since its launch, Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program has supported a wide variety of projects: shorts, features, both narrative and nonfiction. Not to mention the occasional new media project, special event or advocacy initiative. Each month’s Fiscal Spotlight column announces three new projects taking part in the program.
But maybe you’re curious how some of those prior subjects have turned out. Well hey, you’re in luck! Once again it’s time for another FiSpo Update highlighting the recent achievements of previous Fiscal Spotlight subjects.
Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists. The projects and makers participating in the program express a uniqueness of vision, celebrate diversity and advance the craft of filmmaking through the creation of these special works. To see the full range of projects that are part of our program, visit our Sponsored Projects page.
For more, watch our full discussion with Film Independent’s Artist Development team at the bottom of this article. If you’re already part of our Fiscal Sponsorship program and you have a production milestone you’d like to see here, please email us.
A LITTLE HOUSE IN ABERDEEN
Project type: Narrative Short
Project status: Festivals, Distribution
Filmmaker: Emily Goss
Synopsis: A woman reflects on her past and wonders about her future–while she happens to be having an abortion. This is a story about a person apart from the procedure as captured during her in-clinic abortion, casually, vulnerably, and in real time. Shot in a single seven-minute take during the routine procedure, main character Britney attempts to banter cheerfully about her mom, nurture vs. nature, her long-gone dreams and a boy she once knew–who’s probably living in a little house in Aberdeen, South Dakota right about now. Britney is bucking against the vestiges of daughterhood and yet holding out against motherhood. She is lingering in an in-between place, trying to define her personhood. Her abortion will allow her to stay in that place and figure out who she wants to be. Over the course of the procedure, Britney arcs through insecurities, humor, sadness and finds a sense of self.
Updates: A Little House In Aberdeen will screen at the 2023 Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF47) this month. The film is now available to watch on Film Shortage, as well as Minute Shorts, a new shorts platform based in the United Kingdom.
Co-Producers: Aliya Furniturewala, Sheena Matheiken, Anand Ramayya, Gary Byungseok KAM
Synopsis: A shadow trail leads into a black hole, where a child disappears every eight minutes. From The Shadows is a rocky journey through the Indian subcontinent’s most trafficked route, unveiling a sisterhood of survivors and stories of resilience. The film follows an artist, relentlessly spraying silhouettes on public walls tagged #missing and an activist accompanying rescued girls across international borders. Parallel narratives intersect to reveal a sliver of hope when women imaginatively challenge a powerful trafficking nexus operating in a country, where a child goes missing every eight minutes.
Updates: The filmmakers are excited to announce the North American Premiere of From the Shadows, which screened as a part of the South Asian House program for SXSW on March 9 2023. This screening was supported by Film Independent’s Global Media Makers, a residency program where director Miriam Chandy Menacherry participated as a fellow in 2019. Upcoming screenings in Mumbai were hosted by Cinema Collective are on March 10, in partnership with the Canadian Embassy’s Women and Media conference and on March 16 at the National Centre for Performing Arts. Impact screenings are the focus for 2023, in collaboration with SamaBhav–a traveling film festival organized by MAVA (Men Against Violence and Abuse) for college youth running from February to August 2023. The team is also looking to organize additional screenings with the judiciary, police, policymakers, vulnerable communities along India’s Northeast borders and anti-trafficking organizations. The anti-trafficking bill is yet to be passed in Indian parliament.
INTRODUCTING… MARCUS BELGRAVE
Project Type: Documentary Feature
Project Status: Post-Production
Director: Timashion Jones
Producer: Bradley Torreano
Synopsis: Marcus Belgrave made his reputation as a trumpet player with Ray Charles, Motown’s Funk Brothers and Charlie Mingus. Yet when he had the opportunity to leave Detroit for larger opportunities, he stayed behind to become a teacher and community leader, sacrificing the limelight to ensure that the future of his art form was safe in the hands of the next generation. Belgrave’s mentorship resulted in major players in the jazz world such as Geri Allen, Kenny Garrett, James Carter, Regina Carter, Theo Croker and Endea Owens. He was invited to play in the inaugural Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, who in turn would send young musicians to train with Belgrave. Belgrave passed in 2015 and was celebrated internationally by news outlets such as The Guardian and The New York Times. While perhaps a footnote to the average music fan, Belgrave’s dedication to his craft and mentorship has allowed his legacy to live on in dozens of ways: in his city, his students, and his music.
Updates: Introducing… Marcus Belgrave has entered post-production after a lengthy production period. Said the filmmakers: “Like any documentary about a musician, the balance of storytelling and music is delicate and our focus has turned towards doing justice to our subject. The schedule was meticulously planned and we turned towards the edit bay. Then, we learned that the remarkable Terence Blanchard was coming to Detroit. Mr. Blanchard had been a vocal champion of Mr. Belgrave and even though it didn’t fit into our new schedule, we approached his management about an interview. Of the factors we had in our favor, our relationship with Film Independent was incredibly valuable. Mr. Blanchard’s team was aware of your organization and it gave us some of the cache we needed to score that interview. We were lucky enough to reunite our crew for a rush shoot and ended up getting an invaluable conversation with the Oscar-nominated composer. Our story only became better, and the lesson was obvious: take any opportunity you can get, even if it gets in the way of your plan.”
Learn more about Fiscal Sponsorship, including its benefits and eligibility requirements, by visiting our website. Check out our Sponsored Projects page to see the projects are currently being supported.
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(Header: behind the scenes of Introducing… Martin Belgrave)
A Mission, B.C., couple is issuing a message of vigilance after their vehicle, keys, passports, and more were stolen earlier this week.
Jim Cutts normally locks his work truck, but said the night he forgot is the night thieves swung by, got in the truck and used the garage door opener to enter the laundry room and take nearly everything of value.
“They crawled underneath, came in here, rifled through my wife’s car, then they went right into the back door and right there are all our keys for our vehicles, our house, everything, my machinery, the whole nine yards,” Cutts told Global News.
“My wife’s purse sitting right there and they got it. Scooped it, grabbed all the keys, there wasn’t any keys left, they got them all. Took my truck and away they went, gone.”
The break-in reportedly took place early Monday, around 1:30 a.m.
According to Cutts, the thieves tapped his and his wife’s credit cards the very same day at a 7-Eleven in Abbotsford.
It soon became clear the thieves were trying to access their accounts as well, but couldn’t get in without the passwords, he added.
“The whole week has just been a gong show,” he said. “The same day this happened, they were able to get into my phone somehow. My phone SIM card got affected by what they were doing.”
Jessica Kane in custody after court appearance
Cutts’ phone reportedly stopped working on Monday, around 5 p.m., sending his “stress level” soaring.
He said police further warned them that with his wife’s car keys in their possession, the thieves would soon return for her vehicle as well.
Mission RCMP was not immediately available to comment on this story.
Cutts said he’s sharing their story as a warning to others not to repeat his mistakes.
He said the first was forgetting to lock his truck that night; the second was keeping his wallet and passport in his truck, while his wife kept hers and her birth certificate in her purse.
“You gotta take precautions and I didn’t and I paid the price for that. The one night I didn’t lock my truck, they happened to be here. Perfect timing,” he said.
“The emotional cost is very high. I don’t wish this is on anybody.”
Story continues below advertisement
In the future, he said the pair will also take their garage door openers out of their vehicles with them.
Framework announced brand new upgrades for its DIY laptop line that should greatly improve performance. These upgrades can be installed into older models, with two main upgrades for the motherboards: one that brings them from the Intel 12th-gen CPUs to the 13th-gen CPUs, and another that brings AMD CPUs to Framework laptops for the first time.
The 12th-gen Intel chips used in previous Framework laptops negatively affected battery performance but the manufacturer stated that 13th-gen chips are far more battery efficient and “firmware optimizations” will improve battery performance even further.
The AMD upgrade is a bit more mysterious but we do know that it will combine Zen 4 CPU and integrated graphics using AMD’s current-gen RDNA3 architecture, which will give the laptop a major performance boost so it should even handle low-end gaming.
Framework is doing what Microsoft and Apple aren’t
However, the main story here is that Framework has and continues to do what many other laptop manufacturers have only just started at the most in terms of Microsoft and have been skirting around the concept as Apple does.
One of the worst aspects of laptops by far is their lack of sustainability. The fact that you can’t easily upgrade components that naturally age like CPUs, GPUs, or even motherboards, means that eventually your nice and shiny laptop will die and will produce more e-waste. It’s an extremely wasteful cycle that only benefits short-term profits.
But Framework creating a laptop that can be upgraded with new parts while keeping the same modular base is a stroke of genius. Even better is how easy and accessible disassembly is, which is the major roadblock to DIY laptop maintenance, if the laptop manufacturer even allows for it in the first place.
In recent years, Microsoft has finally loosened the reins on ‘right to repair,’ allowing users to open up their Surface Laptop SE laptops and repair them — even featuring the steps in a how-to video, though the tech giant hasn’t been clear on whether this would void your warranty. When it comes to other Microsoft products, however, users are still forced to use first-party repair services.
It’s still better than Apple, which has refused to budge on its own stance regarding ‘right to repair’ when it comes to laptops and PCs. It does offer Apple Self Service Repair, but that only works for some phones.
As a refresher, a consumer’s ‘right to repair’ means that they are given the tools, knowledge, and legal leeway to repair their own tech and hardware, a movement that has grown increasingly popular as laptops have become more widespread. And compared to two multi-billion dollar corporations, Framework is light years ahead of them in progress.
Dell does have its own version of Framework’s DIY laptops called Concept Luna, which would offer the same features. It even bragged that you could take apart a laptop in two minutes, and watching the process unfold in live demos is quite impressive. However, Dell hasn’t released said project or even announced a release date for it, which means it’s still just a concept.
The Film That Lit My Fuse is a Deadline video series that aims to provide an antidote to headlines about industry uncertainty by swinging the conversation back to the creative ambitions, formative influences and inspirations of some of today’s great screen artists.
Every installment asks the same five questions. Today’s subject is Chad Stahelski, who rose from a stuntman and martial arts background to become director of four John Wick films, the final of which opens today through Lionsgate and is expected to clean the clock of competitors at the weekend box office. Armed with a love of Greek mythology and history, Stahelski’s trajectory to the director’s chair is an unusual one. He graduated from a stunt double to second unit director of stunt-heavy films. He bundled all that together and teamed with Keanu Reeves — whom he met working as the star’s stunt double on the films Constantine and The Matrix trilogy — on the modest action film John Wick. The simple tale of a hitman roused from retirement when the dog left him by his late wife is cruelly killed in a home invasion, the series broadened into a mythological bonanza by unlocking the shadowy crime world that Wick thrived in and then tried to escape from.
Here, he explains the influences that helped him get there,.
The internet’s favorite action star! Keanu Reeves has been famous for more than 30 years, but his fans have never stopped loving him — and their adoration keeps growing every year.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1964, the Matrix star has a reputation for being kind to strangers even though he’s a world famous movie star. In July 2022, the Speed actor made headlines for chatting with a young fan at the airport.
“Keanu Reeves was on my flight from London to NYC today. A young boy asked for an autograph at baggage & then began to fire off a series of rapid-fire questions. Keanu happily responded to every single one,” TV producer Andrew Kimmel wrote in a series of tweets at the time. “Kid: Why were you in London? KR: Filming a documentary. Kid: I saw online you were at the Grand Prix (pronouncing the x). KR: Yes, the Grand Prix (in a French accent, without correcting him). F1! Race cars!”
After the boy started running out of things to ask, Reeves proceeded to ask him about his own plans. “Why were you in Europe? What galleries did you go to in Paris? What was your favorite?” Kimmel recalled. “The man could not have been nicer, especially after an international flight. I thought I’d share this because the dude is a class act and little moments like this can make such a big difference in people’s lives. We need more Keanus!”
“It’s new levels of action,” Reeves said in a featurette for the sequel. “John Wick action asks just a little bit more. And you see the effort and the commitment from the team.”
Even when the work is grueling, the Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure star can’t help but find the positive side of things. “It’s the best kind of tired,” he told ComicBook.com in March 2023. “It’s like you climbed a mountain [and] now you’re resting. like you finished the game and you won.”
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Keep scrolling for a look back at Reeves’ life and career over the years:
A trip to Paris should be on everyone’s bucket list, even John Wick. The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre — what better way to refresh your soul, even as you kick everyone else’s bucket?
The un-retired assassin does indeed dive into the City of Lights in the inventive and thrilling “John Wick: Chapter 4” a sequel which elevates and expands the franchise. The fourth installment is more stylish, more elegant and more bonkers — kind of like Paris itself.
When we last saw Wick, he was half dead in the gutter after being shot and tumbling several stories off the Hotel Continental in New York. He was on the blacklist with a $14 million price on his head. (Inflation has even hit this franchise: The bounty swells to $40 million by the end of part four.)
Wick, as always played with monosyllabic and brooding intensity by Keanu Reeves, leaves his customary trail of death, but there’s a shift here. So often the prey in the previous movies, Wick is on the offense in the fourth, taking his demands directly to The High Table, the group of shadowy crime lords that keep order.
This time, the Table’s sadistic frontman is a dandy called the Marquis, played with coiled menace by Bill Skarsgård, who spouts things like: “Second chances are the refuge of men who fail.” But he’s a secret coward, so feel free to boo loudly.
The nine-fingered Wick wants to end his nightmare, naturally, by killing everyone. His too-cool frenemy, Ian McShane’s Winston, challenges him to think differently: “Have you learned nothing?” he asks the man who, to be honest, he shot in the last movie. “You’ll run out of bullets before they run out of heads.”
Returning writer Shay Hatten, along with co-writer Michael Finch, have come up with a possible solution for Wick: Win an old-fashioned duel with the Marquis. Win and be free, lose and be buried.
Not so fast, of course. Along the way, Wick must somehow handle the blind martial arts master Caine, played by Donnie Yen, bringing humor and verve to a fighter who is tasked with either slaying his one-time friend or have his daughter killed.
There’s also Killa, a jumbo-sized card shark played by martial arts star Scott Adkins, and The Tracker, a very talented bounty hunter played by Shamier Anderson. Don’t forget a swarm of Paris-based amateur bounty-hunters and armored ninjas who seem as plentiful as the city’s baguettes.
All the touches you expect from a Wick flick are here — a cool dog, hand-to-hand combat amid glass display cases, candles and Christian iconography, galloping horses, the screech of metal swords and a new way to hurt someone, in this case, a single playing card. We visit Germany, Japan and end in France, even going to a disused subway platform.
Returning director Chad Stahelski loves combining neon with gloom and now has the budget to rent out space in the Louvre. Of the 14 action sequences — yes, 14 — a few are truly mind-blowing, like a fight in the middle of the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe and a drone capturing a complicated set piece in a building involving what is being called a dragon’s breath shotgun. Repeating that last bit: dragon’s breath shotgun.
If there was a bit of a slog through would-be assassins in “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” — you know, shoot, stab, repeat — there is none here. One sequence on a set of outdoor stairs in Paris is almost riotously funny as knives and guns blast away, while the filmmakers add water and fire to a nightclub rave scene that puts clueless dancers next to axe-throwing murderers.
A shout-out to costume designer Paco Delgado, who has outfitted the baddie gunmen in light-colored three-piece suits and combat boots, and the executive baddies in fitted elegance with extravagant cravat-style ties. One of the film’s saddest parts is saying goodbye to Lance Reddick, who played Continental Hotel concierge Charon and died on the eve of the movie’s debut.
How does this all end? Actually, on something of a deflating note. Earlier in the film, Wick’s Japan-based friend Shimazu — played awesomely by Hiroyuki Sanada — had asked a question that eternally hangs over this franchise: “Have you given any thought to how this ends?”
This chapter ends in death, of course. But that’s also how it lives.
“John Wick: Chapter 4,” a Lionsgate release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R for “pervasive strong violence and some language.” Running time: 169 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four. ___ MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. ___ Online: https://johnwick.movie
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SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “Closure,” the Season 1 finale of “Shrinking,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Throughout “Shrinking,” Jimmy (Jason Segel) makes a handful of questionable decisions as a therapist. However, his session with Grace (Heidi Gardner) in the final episode seemingly encourages her to make a dire decision. While telling Jimmy she’s finally standing up to her verbally abusive boyfriend, Grace jokes that he’s lucky they’re not on a cliff because she’d push him off. Jimmy cheers her on, telling her, “That’s what I’m talking about! Off the cliff! Bash his brains! Eat them up!”
The episode ends, however, with her boyfriend threatening her on a hike and her pushing him off the cliff.
“One of the things that we did think was really, really important was to make sure that the show was honest. And Jimmy is behaving erratically and trying new unconventional therapy and there’s convention for a reason. And so there needs to be consequences for his actions,” Segel tells Variety. “It couldn’t all be that it just works. So we’re gonna definitely see the fallout of this and see adjustments being made. I mean, there’s a moment in the show where I say ‘bash his brains, eat them up.’ Probably not proper therapy.”
While there will be repercussions in Season 2, co-creator Bill Lawrence thinks it’s important to note that although he’s not defending Jimmy’s behavior, it’s based in reality. When he sees comments on social media about how unrealistic or unacceptable certain actions are, he has to hold himself back from responding.
“People don’t think that we interviewed 100 therapists. All of these are based on real things. I can show people the documentary segment on the therapist that took for PTSD patients out to do MMA. That’s flat out real,” he says, referencing Jimmy taking Sean (Luke Tennie) to fight after a therapy session in the pilot. “We did the research. People would be like, ‘It’s crazy that there’s no consequences.’ I always want to go, ‘Really, do you think we thought of that? Do you think there’s probably going to be consequences?’ The show’s not over with Episode 10. That’s both the frustrating and fun part.”
Jimmy crosses the therapist line multiple times throughout the first season, but “there has to be consequences when you cross certain lines,” says Lawrence. “I don’t think they will necessarily be what people expect. … I haven’t seen anybody that has figured out what’s going to go down so far as we keep moving.”
Another example is the fact that Paul (Harrison Ford) is in a romantic relationship with his doctor, played by Wendie Malick. The storyline has caused some backlash on social media, which Lawrence has seen. “I saw one that said, ‘She’s his neurologist, she shouldn’t be sleeping with one of her patients. They’re idiots!’ You don’t think we know that? Do you think that that’s already a script in Season 2? It makes me crazy, but it’s also very exciting because it’s the way I watch TV.”
Some of the sources you follow in Feedly are broader than the topics and trends you care about. That additional noise can add up and become overwhelming or result in you wasting precious time.
In this article, we’ll show you how to use Feedly AI Mute Filters to mute keywords, companies, people, topics, authors, sites, and more.
Let’s get started!
Mute keywords
Want to avoid a spoiler about Game of Thrones until you have finished reading all the books or tired of hearing about Pokemon Go or the latest Apple monitor?
Train Feedly AI to mute Game of Thrones
You can train Feedly AI to mute specific keywords and remove all mentions of those keywords from your feeds, temporarily or permanently.
Note: with Feedly AI Mute Filters, you no longer need to use quotes around phrases with spaces. Feedly AI will take care of converting the input into the right query.
Mute companies
Curating content to share on Social Media and want to avoid mentions of your competitors?
Train Feedly AI to mute mentions of SAP in your business feed
You can train Feedly AI to mute each of your competitors and automatically remove all the articles mentioning those competitors.
Mute people
Want to avoid articles about specific celebrities, politicians, or executives?
Train Feedly AI to mute mentions of Kim Kardashian
Creating a Feedly AI Mute Filter for a celebrity, politician or executive will automatically remove all the articles that mention that person from your feed.
Mute topics
Following a broad source like TechCrunch, Wired and Forbes but don’t care about topics like gaming? Or following a keyword alert for a public company but don’t care about financials or market reports?
Train Feedly AI to mute mentions of business financials
With Feedly AI Mute Filters, you can mute topics and increase the focus of your Feeds. Leo ships with 1,000 pre-trained topics.
Mute authors
Don’t like a specific author from one of the sources you follow?
Train Feedly AI to mute a specific author with the author: operator
With the author: operator, you can train Feedly AI to look for specific authors and mute all the articles from that author in your Feed. (Sorry Katherine, we actually love your work!)
Mute title patterns
Want to remove articles which have a specific keyword in their title?
Train Feedly AI to look for a keyword in the title of an article
With the title: prefix, you can train Feedly AI to look for a mention of a keyword in the title of the article and mute the matches.
Mute sites
Finding some of the sources referenced in Google News Keyword Alerts irrelevant?
Train Feedly AI to mute specific sites using the site: operator
With the site: prefix, you can train Feedly AI to mute specific sites from your keyword alerts.
Forever or temporarily
When you create a Feedly AI Mute Filter, you can specify a duration.
Select a duration
Once you have trained Feedly AI with a Mute Filter, you can easily remove, pause or resume that filter via the Train Feedly AI page.
Pause or remove a mute filter
Like with all the other Feedly AI features, it was important for us that you always feel in control and can continuously refine your Feedly AI as your needs evolve.
While reading
When reading articles, Feedly AI will highlight the most salient entities mentioned in the content. This makes it easy to click on them and priorities or mute those entities.
Mute an entity while reading
You can also highlight any snippet of text and mute that phrase
Highlight and mute any phrase
Finally, when reading an article, you can click on the Less Like This button and easily mute one of the topics Feedly AI has associated with the article
Train Feedly AI to mute a topic vis Less Like This
On mobile or on the web
The Feedly AI Mute Filter skill is available both on the Web and on mobile (version 65+).
You can train Feedly AI to mute topics and keywords on mobile.
From a Feed
Train Feedly AI to mute mentions of Apple on your Business feed
From an article
Train Feedly AI to mute mentions of Spark New Zealand
From Less Like This (long swipe from right to left)
Train Feedly AI to mute a topic via Less Like This
Curious about trying Feedly AI Mute Filters on some of your feeds? Try Feedly Pro+.
FAQ
Are there limits to the number of Feedly AI Mute Filters a user or team can create?
The number of Mute Filters you can use is determined by the plan you are on:
Pro+ plan – 25 terms per Feed
Business plan – 200 terms per Feed
Note: The “All Personal Feeds” option counts as 1 Feed in terms of these limits. You can have 25 or 200 terms on this feed, depending on your plan.
Can a Mute Filter target a specific source?
No. Mute filters can target a list of sources (what we call a Feed) or all your Feeds.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods star Marta Milans reacted to the film’s slow box office start, citing several reasons including “haters on the internet.”
Opening to one of the worst starts in DC history, Shazam! 2 brought in only $30.1 million during the 3-day domestic opening weekend. That’s $23.4 million less than 2019’s Shazam! and $36.9 million behind 2022’s Black Adam opening.
A major part of the poor commercial opening is the equally negative reception by critics. The original was reviewed well, earning a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Fury of the Gods currently sits at a rotten 51%.
Mama Rosa actress Marta Milans believed part of the reason for the negative reactions was due to some politics involved.
Shazam! Star on Critics’ Agendas Affecting Reviews
In an exclusive conversation with The Direct, Shazam! Fury of the Gods actress Marta Milans responded to the negative reception of the DCU’s latest. The star believed “there is a lot of politics involved” and there’s a “political agenda” amongst critics:
“I know that there is a lot of politics involved and a lot of hardcore fans of one side, on the other side, a lot of haters on the internet. A lot of critics feel like they have a political agenda rather than actually sitting and watching the film and enjoying it.”
While expressing her frustration, Milans made it a point to explain that Shazam 2 isn’t “trying to push any agenda” and questioned the idea “that celebrating fun isn’t good enough:”
“We’re not trying to push any agenda. We’re not trying to prove any point. And I don’t know what it is about, I don’t know if it’s our society nowadays that celebrating fun isn’t good enough. A movie that is, you just go and you feel good about it, and you have a good laugh, and you see the Shazamily, that seems to be good enough for some people.”
Milans remains hopeful for a potential third film because of the franchise’s “special story” and “feel-good sensation:”
“So, I hope that won’t have anything to do with the decision-making in the future. I do believe it’s a special story that has touched a lot of parts all over the world, and I think that’s part of the reason why the first movie was so successful, and we were able to do a second one. And I just hope that that word of mouth and that feel-good sensation will continue to pass along all over the world. And let’s cross fingers for a third one. Who knows?”
Marta Milans Explains the Box Office Woes of Shazam! 2
A lot has changed since the first film of 2019 release, particularly in terms of moviegoers’ trends after the COVID-19 pandemic. Marta Milans is keenly aware, putting it plainly, “I think post-COVID, less people go to the movie theaters. That is just a sad reality.”
The actress described this as “just a sad reality” and attributed that partially to why the Shazam! sequel is earning less than the original.
Milans also addressed the buzz phrase of “superhero fatigue,” but found that the exhaustion is mainly from the critics, not the fans. She mentioned specifically reading “unnecessary hatred comments” from “trolls” during the opening weekend release:
“I don’t know if there’s a superhero fatigue, it might be, it’s clear that there’s a superhero fatigue in the critic’s world where you have all these trolls that just make some unnecessary hatred comments that are so uncalled for that I should stop reading it over the weekend because I was like, you know what? It’s just not worth it. “
The bottom line is Shazam! 2 will (probably) not be deemed a success in the eyes of Warner Bros. Discovery executives. Milans seems to understand that, saying “No one is doing this for the love of art” but she doesn’t care about what the critics have to say:
“I don’t care how many critics say one thing, how many reviews, how many the box office numbers, it’s understandable that these big movies of this size, inevitably they have to perform at the box office because they cost a lot of money to make. That’s just a fact. And at the end of the day, this is a business. No one is doing this for the love of art. They’re doing it because they have to make money. I get that.”
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is playing now playing in theaters worldwide.
After five years, a family devastated by a terrible swatting “prank” has settled with the city of Wichita for $5 million dollars. This has come after extensive legal proceedings that saw all defendants put in jail on a variety of charges.
Lawsuit Over Fatal 2017 Call of Duty Swatting “Prank” Finally Settles for $5 Million
Call of Duty games can frequently get heated in voice comms, even between teammates. This is what happened in late 2017 when an incident broke out between Casey S. Viner, then 18, and Shane Gaskill, then 19. The incident involved Gaskill killing Viner through friendly fire.
Things escalated from “trash talk” when Viner threatened to have Gaskill swatted. Gaskill urged Viner to do so and provided Viner with an address where he’d previously lived at.
Viner provided this address to Tyler Barriss, known in the community as “SWAuTistic.” Barriss then called the Wichita Police department to tell them he was at the address Viner provided. A police affidavit went on to state that Barriss claimed he’d killed his own father and was holding the rest of the family at gunpoint, and that the house had already been drenched in gasoline.
Wichita police officers, who were not SWAT team members and were not trained for hostage rescues, responded to the call and arrived at the address provided by Viner. While Viner no longer lived there, Andrew Finch, father of two, did.
Police officers surrounded the residence at 6:23 p.m. Andrew Finch stepped outside, confused by the situation, and was told to lift his hands. He did so but was shot within 10 seconds after a movement he made startled Officer Justin Rapp.
At that point, Bariss was still on the line with dispatch but discontinued the call at 6:46 p.m. Finch was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead at 7:03 p.m.
The Aftermath and the Legal Proceedings
Tyler Barriss
Because the setup for the swatting incident took place over Twitter, Tyler Barriss (“SWAuTistic”) was quickly identified and arrested the next day. He was charged with making a false bomb threat to KABC-TV in 2015 and for the involuntary manslaughter of Andrew Finch, false information and hoaxes, cyberstalking resulting in death, making threats of death or damage to property by fire, interstate threats, conspiracy to make false reports, and wire fraud.
On November 13, 2018, Barriss pleaded guilty to 51 federal charges. He paid $10,100 in fines and restitution to the Finch family and $5,000 in restitution to the Kansas Crime Victims Compensation Board, which had to pay the same costs to the Finch family for funeral costs. He was sentenced to spend 20 years in federal prison, with five years of supervised release to run once those 20 years are over.
Casey Viner
Casey S. Viner, who prompted Barriss to make the swat call, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to make false/hoax reports, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. On April 2019, Viner pleaded guilty to his charges and was sentenced to a 15-month prison sentence and two years of probation, during which time he’d be banned from playing video games. Viner was released on November 14, 2020.
Shane Gaskill
Gaskill, who provided the false address, was charged with obstruction of justice, wire fraud, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Gaskill was re-indicted in July on additional charges after he sent two more messages to Barriss. One said: “Do you wanna try again?” In the other message, Gaskill gave Barriss an IP address Gaskill claimed Barriss could use to launch another swatting assault on him. The IP address did not belong to Gaskill.
However, Gaskill was able to strike a deal for deferred prosecution that would have potentially allowed charges against him to be dropped. But in September 2021, Gaskill violated the terms of his diversion, and the trial resumed. The motion to resume trial did not specify which terms were violated.
The case against Gaskill resumed, and Gaskill pled guilty to one count of wire fraud in May 2022 and was sentenced to 18 months of prison in September 2022. He is expected to be released in March 2024.
Officer who fatally shot Andrew Finch, Justin Rapp
In the immediate aftermath of Andrew Finch’s death, Officer Justin Rapp received no disciplinary action. Justin Rapp claims he fired on Finch because he thought – incorrectly – Finch was holding a firearm. Rapp did not provide a verbal warning to Finch before shooting.
On July 2022, a civil suit was brought against Officer Justin Rapp, who sought summary judgment. The U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with a lower Kansas federal court that the Finch family had standing and could pursue the case against the officer but not the city of Wichita.
According to the appellate panel, summary judgment based on qualified immunity was not appropriate in this case, as a reasonable jury could conclude that Finch was unarmed and unthreatening, thus making Rapp’s actions in violation of clearly established laws.
“As a result,” the appellate judges stated, “qualified immunity ‘protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.’”
This civil suit reached a settlement on March 21, 2023, when the city council voted for the $5 million dollar settlement 6-1. The city is responsible for the cost of the settlement, not Justin Rapp, who was promoted last year to detective.
The city will pay $2 million from its self-insurance fund, and $1.5 million from the city council’s reserve fund, with AIG paying the remainder of the settlement. This settlement will go to the Finch family estate, his children, and the attorney fees that have accumulated over the course of half a decade in pursuit of justice.
Unfortunately, the toll this case took on Finch and his family can never be undone. Finch’s niece, who witnessed the slaying of her uncle, took her life one year later at the age of 18, and her boyfriend followed one year after that.
Swatting continues to be a blight in the gaming community that causes unspeakable harm that no amount of money will ever be able to heal. But at least the long and exhausting court case is finally over for the Finch family.
Nani’s Dasara creates Dhoom Dhaam across the earth, the moon and the sun
To north Indians, Nani means maternal grandmother. Wonder what it means in Nani’s native Telugu. His full name, though, is Ghanta Naveen Babu, and he is 39. After a dubbed success called Super Khiladi 4, in this, his 29th film, Dasara, he has a very earthy look, unshaven and with long, unruly hair. “You might be pardoned for thinking that this is the same look sported by Allu Arjun in Pushpa, though the two films are poles apart. But I tell you what. If you liked Pushpa, come and see Dasara. You will not be disappointed.”
Nani, a former RJ and assistant director, was speaking at the PVR Juhu Multiplex, where the audience was shown the teaser, the trailer and the song, ‘Dhoom Dhaam’. Also present on the occasion were heroine of the film, Keerthi Suresh, co-star Dheekshith Shetty (who makes his feature film debut), producer Srikanth Chundi Garu and surprise guest, Rana Dagubatti. Rana had come to promote his friend’s film. Nani produced his first film, D for Dopidi in 2013. His second production was Awe, in 2018.Years ago, Ajay Devgn had turned up to promote Nani’s earlier film. Nani has not forgotten that gesture. Although the Ajay Devgn starrer Bholaa is releasing on the same day as Dasara, 30 March, Nani will first go to see Bholaa and then his own film.
Sharing the experience of making Dasara, Nani confessed that it was no picnic. In fact, shooting the scenes in dust and mud was sheer torture. “But when we saw the results on the monitor, at the end of the day, it was worth every bit.” Asked by a media-person whether the story is a casualty amidst all the gory violence in Telugu films, Nani said, “This is the most emotional film of my career. Also, my character in the film is the most vulnerable one I have ever portrayed.” In an answer to another question, he responded, “Earlier, Telugu films were a notch below Hindi films. Now they have caught up and it is a level playing field.”
Keerthi (sometimes spelt Keerthy), looking stunningly sexy, confided that Nani was always open to discussion about how to do particular scenes, but he was a prankster as well, always pulling somebody’s leg. “The best part was that the unit let me be what I am at heart – a brat.” She also revealed that it took her some effort to get the Telangana dialect right. Dheekshith Shetty was reluctant to say anything, because he had been warned to keep mum. Earlier, he has spilled some beans in an interview, and therefore the gag. All he said was, “I play Nani’s friend and my name is Suri.” Explaining the name, Nani averred, “My name in the film, Dharini, stands for earth in the film, Keerthi’s name is Vennela, which is the moon and Dheekshith is the sun.”
In the videos we saw, there was a liberal flow of alcohol. I was told that at the entrance, downstairs, mock-tails were served, in liquor-like bottles, but by that time I was already on my seat in the auditorium. Compère Nitin did a competent job, with the usual trope built in, while Rana Dagubatti proved that he is fluent in English, and getting fluent in Hindi too. He has spent most of the last 12-13 years here, in Mumbai, and that should help him with the lingo. Ramanaidu Daggubati was born in Madras (present-day Chennai), Tamil Nadu to film producer D. Suresh Babu. He is named after his paternal grandfather, D. Ramanaidu, a prominent Telugu and Hindi film producer. A member of the Daggubati–Akkineni family, his paternal uncle Venkatesh, and his cousin Naga Chaitanya, are also actors.
Dasara, apparently, is a reference to the festival that precedes Deepavali. In north India, it is spelt Dussehra or Dashahra. This usually falls in October. No wonder the advertising line reads, ‘This year, Dasara will be in March.’
The song is what you would expect in a movie of its genre. It begins with a tepid qavvaalee, but when the performers have had their share of the devil’s brew, the Dhoom Dhaam begins in earnest.
Lionsgate’s “John Wick: Chapter 4” is coming in ahead of already lofty projections.
The Keanu Reeves-led action epic has reportedly pulled in $30 million on Friday, easily the best opening day ever for a “John Wick” movie and readying the film for a franchise record stateside debut.
In fact, that amount, which includes just under $9 million in Thursday previews is equal to the entire opening weekend of “John Wick: Chapter 2” back in 2017. As such the fourth ‘Wick’ is on track to hit above $70 million for the weekend.
That’s well above the $14 million the first scored in 2014, the $30.4 million the second landed in 2017, and the $56.8 million the third landed in 2019. Going into the week the film was tracking for a debut of around $60 million so it’s performing better than the studio had hoped.
More telling is that the film’s reviews just keep getting better. The Rotten Tomatoes critics score sits as 96% certified fresh whilst the audience score stands at 97%.
The fourth installment also boasts the largest price tag of the franchise, costing more than $100 million to produce, but it is easily expected to finish with the highest total of the series to date – above the $328.3 million global haul of the third.
The Jar Jar Binks actor has previously spoken about the effect that backlash against the character on his mental health, saying he contemplated suicide due to the hatred.
In the latest episode of “The Mandalorian,” longtime “Star Wars” fans were given a major surprise when Ahmed Best — the actor behind CGI prequel trilogy character Jar Jar Binks — made a return to the franchise as a different character, Jedi Master Kelleran Beq.
But while Best’s casting may be a shot of nostalgia for many viewers, the actor himself had his reservations about heading back to the galaxy far far away.
“Honestly, I had to think about it,” Best said in an interview with the official StarWars.com website. I’ve been in the Star Wars world for such a long time and my story is such a rollercoaster ride of emotions. So coming back to Star Wars wasn’t an easy decision for me. It wasn’t something I could have immediately said yes to. I did have to marinate over it for a bit.”
Jar Jar, a comical Gungan alien that Best played in all three prequel films from 1999 to 2005, is notorious as one of the most hated characters in the “Star Wars” franchise. Best has been open about how the backlash against the character, and racist harassment against him from haters, has affected his mental health; in 2019, he spoke about how the backlash caused him to contemplate suicide. Best opened up about his experiences during similar racist hate campaigns against other “Star Wars” actors, including Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega.
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In spite of his difficult experiences with the franchise, Best said he was still a fan of “Star Wars,” and part of his hesitation when he got the offer from “Mandalorian” executive producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni to join the show came from worries about how he would fit into the overall story.
“I mean, I was excited. I don’t think people really understand how much I care about ‘Star Wars.’ Like, I really care,” Best said. “I really, really care about the storytelling, about the mythology, about the fans. I really want ‘Star Wars’ to deliver, and if I become an obstacle to that, then I shouldn’t be in it. I don’t want to be bigger than the story. I don’t want to be bigger than the mythology. I want to contribute, I want to add to it. So it took me a minute.”
Ultimately, Favreau and Filoni’s support convinced Best to go ahead and join the show. Best previously played Beq in the 2020 YouTube kids’ game show “Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge,” and spoke about his hopes for reprising the role in future “Star Wars” projects.
“Coming back, being in ‘The Mandalorian,’ part of me doesn’t want to let it go. In ‘The Phantom Menace’ days, you had to let it go. It was just George [Lucas] doing it. Now, you can do it for a while. You can tell stories in ‘Star Wars’ and have them be in multiple mediums,” Best said. “As a writer, as a director now, as a teacher now, there is so much more that I want to do that this universe is perfect for, that I don’t want this to be the end of legacy. I don’t want this to be the end of the story. I want this to be the beginning, and a new beginning. Especially through Kelleran Beq.”
Joe’s London vacation has come to a bloody end, and after leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Netflix’s favorite serial killer is back stateside. Netflix recently confirmed that You has been renewed for a Fifth and final season. We’ll be keeping track of everything you need to know about You season 5 on Netflix.
You is a Netflix Original romantic crime drama series created by Greg Berlanti and based on the novels You and Hidden Bodies by author Caroline Kepnes.
Prior to its arrival on Netflix, the series was on Lifetime. However, once Netflix picked up the series as an original, the streaming service’s global reach helped push the popularity of You into the stratosphere, and has been one of Netflix’s most popular crime dramas since.
You Season 5 Netflix Renewal Status
Official Netflix Renewal Status: Renewed (Last Updated: 24/03/2023)
We have official confirmation that You has been renewed by Netflix for a fifth and final season.
The fifth season will come with some changes as showrunner Sera Gamble leaves the series as Showrunner after four seasons. She will continue as an executive producer on the series, meanwhile, Executive Producers Michael Foley and Justin W. Lo will step in as Co-Showrunners.
Gamble had the following to say about her departure as showrunner of the series;
“As I step back from day-to-day showrunning to focus on new projects, I’m immensely grateful to co-creator and all-around genius Greg Berlanti, Caroline Kepnes, my friends at Berlanti Productions and Alloy Entertainment, and our steadfast partners at Warner Bros and Netflix. Making the show alongside our writers, producers, directors, cast and crew has been an honor and ridiculously fun. And I feel lucky to have worked with an artist as gifted and thoughtful as Penn Badgely. I’m proud of what we’ve all accomplished and feel privileged to pass the torch. I’m excited to watch and support the You team as they bring Joe Goldberg’s journey to its delightfully twisted conclusion.”
Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter had the following to say about the renewal;
“We are so incredibly grateful to Netflix and Sera and everyone that has been a part of this show from the beginning. Sera is the most brilliant writer and partner and she will remain a key part of the YOU family as an executive producer. We intend to bring her every idea we can from our company for years to come. Ever since our friends at Alloy shared Caroline Kepnes’ fantastic book we have always conceived it as a five-season journey. We are excited to continue our relationship with Mike and Justin as they take over the reins as co-showrunners and prepare to bring Joe Goldberg home.”
Viewing Statistics for You Season 4
Week Period
Hours Viewed (M)
Rank
Week in Top 10
February 5th, 2023 to February 12th, 2023
92,070,000
1
1
February 12th, 2023 to February 19th, 2023
64,060,000 (-30%)
1
2
February 19th, 2023 to February 26th, 2023
27,750,000 (-57%)
5
3
March 5th, 2023 to March 12th, 2023
75,810,000 (+173%)
1
4
March 12th, 2023 to March 19th, 2023
64,060,000 (-15%)
1
5
In total, all four seasons have amassed over 1.1 billion viewing hours on Netflix. However when you consider Netflix has only been releasing weekly data since Q3 2021, if you add the viewing data from season 2 this pushes the viewing stats to over 1.5 billion viewing hours. The total viewing hours are even higher still when you consider the viewing data from the first season was never released except for the fact that the series had 40 million viewers.
As one of the most popular crime dramas on Netflix, it’s come as no surprise that the series will get a well-deserved final season.
Peter Friedlander, the Vice President of Scripted Series, Netflix, US, and Canada also had his say on the renewal;
“YOU became an instant sensation on Netflix with a resounding cultural impact that has grown season over season. We’re excited — and a bit terrified — to see how it all ends for Joe Goldberg, but one thing is for sure: YOU are in for an unforgettable ending.”
What can we expect to see from You season 5?
Joe the Billionaire
For the second time in his life, the power and money of the family of Joe’s significant other saved him from facing the consequences of his crimes. Thanks to Kate inheriting her father’s fortune and company, Joe now has access to near-unlimited resources.
This means that if Joe were to murder again, it would take very little to sweep it all under the rug.
Joe has embraced his dark self
Always imagining himself as the hero of his own story, Joe has tirelessly tried to fight the darker side of his personality. The attempt to disassociate himself from his actions was so strong, that it resulted in a mental breakdown which saw Joe hallucinate a manifestation of the dark side of himself.
A match made in murder Kate and Joe – Netflix
The symbolism of Joe’s reflection in the skyscraper window, and seeing Rhys’s reflection in return is our confirmation that Joe has now embraced his darker self.
Will Joe now kill for fun?
Logically, other than anyone threatening him or Kate, Joe has no further justification to murder, anyone. However, this is Joe we’re talking about, which means some poor unfortunate (or deserved) soul will cross his path eventually, and wind up dead.
Deep down Joe likes to kill, it’s only now with Kate’s power and influence does he have the opportunity to murder with impunity. Knowing he’s protected, Joe may get sloppy as he looks for any reason to chase the thrill of the kill, especially if he can justify it through some virtuous self-reasoning, such as protecting himself and Kate.
Deep down does Joe really enjoy killing? – Netflix
Will Joe’s past come back to haunt him?
Despite his power and influence, there are three large loose ends that haven’t been dealt with entirely. Marienne, Nadia, and Ellie Alves.
After refusing to cooperate with Joe, Nadia is currently in prison after being framed for the murder of her boyfriend. In time, there may be a way for her to be released.
We’re not even sure if Joe knows that Marienne is alive. For her sake, it’s better if it continues that way. Her daughter, Juliette, is the main reason why Marienne may never expose her existence to Joe, however, if Marienne decides to try and bring him to justice, she will need help.
Marienne narrowly escaped from Joe with her life – Netflix
Finally, is Ellie, the sister of Delilah, who was murdered by Love Quinn. While Joe was still in the US he was regularly sending money to Ellie while she was at college in New York City. After Joe faked his death and moved to England, it’s unclear if those payments continued. Joe’s return to the states is a story of great fascination, which has been made extremely public as Kate has used her power and influence to control the narrative and make Joe the victim of his former wife Love Quinn. If Ellie can connect the dots, and realize Joe’s part to play in Delilah’s death, then she may look to seek revenge on behalf of her sister.
Jenna Ortega could return as Ellie – Netflix
It must be noted that Jenna Ortega was meant to make an appearance in the fourth season of You, but her busy schedule stopped her from reprising her role. However, if there is time in her schedule to return we may see her in You once more.
Will Joe receive his own stalker?
Over the past four seasons, Joe has stalked many people, including himself, but the object of obsession has been limited to a small pool of people, Beck Love, Marienne, and the imagined Rhys.
With Joe now being a subject of great fascination in the media, perhaps it’s about time Joe becomes stalked.
Who are the cast members of You season 5?
Naturally, Penn Badgley will be returning as Joe Goldberg.
We would also expect Charlie Ritchie to reprise her role as Kate Lockwood in the fifth season.
Once we have further information, we’ll ensure to update you with all the latest news.
When could expect to see You season 5 on Netflix?
The release schedules of the previous 4 seasons of You have been the following;
Season 1 – 26/12/2018
Season 2 – 26/12/2019
Season 3 – 15/10/2021
Season 4A – 09/02/2023
Season 4B – 09/03/2023
Between the final episode broadcast on Showtime, and the release of season 2 on Netflix was just over thirteen months. Thanks to the pandemic, there was a significant gap of twenty-two months for the release of the third season. There was a sixteen-month gap between the third and the first half of the fourth season. Lastly, there was a month separating the first and second halves of the fourth season.
Going by the previous releases it could take anywhere between thirteen to sixteen months before we see the final season of You on Netflix. This means we could see You season 5 on Netflix anywhere between April 2024 and July 2024.
What do you think will happen in the fifth season You? Let us know in the comments below!
While “Dahmer” star Evan Peters is on a hot streak, the list of his fellow contenders for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie Emmy continues to grow.
We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2023 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 15 to June 26, with the official Emmy nominations announced Wednesday, July 12. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be presented over two consecutive nights on Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10, with an edited presentation of the ceremonies to be broadcast on FXX at a later date. Finally, the 75th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards take place on Monday, September 18, and air live on FOX at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
The State of the Race
Though “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” star Evan Peters winning a second Emmy for his chilling portrayal of the Wisconsin-born serial killer may seem like a forgone conclusion given the Netflix anthology series’ unprecedented success, he will actually face plenty of stiff competition in the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie category.
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For example, Taron Egerton has been campaigning hard for the Apple TV+ prison drama “Black Bird,” even appearing at the Governors Awards, an Oscars event last fall, with only the limited series to promote. Daniel Radcliffe was able to earn some winter award season nominations for his titular role in the zany “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” biopic, which is increasingly rare for stars of TV movies. And just recently, “This Is Going to Hurt” lead nominations for the 2023 BAFTA TV Awards, and that show completely hinges on Ben Whishaw’s lead performance.
The main two shows that still have the potential to shake up the Limited Series races are HBO’s “White House Plumbers” and HBO Max’s “Love and Death.” Even though both are based on real life stories that the Emmy-voting audience already saw versions of as recently as last season, it is exciting to see what actors like Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux do with the former’s material, about the Watergate scandal. And Jesse Plemons made a name for himself by always delivering riveting performances in Emmy-winning shows like “Friday Night Lights,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Fargo,” but has never won an Emmy himself, so a possible third nomination playing the man who had an affair with the infamous Candy Montgomery could be the charm.
Current Contenders (In Alphabetical Order): Steve Carell, “The Patient” (FX) Sam Claflin, “Daisy Jones and the Six” (Amazon Prime Video) Taron Egerton, “Black Bird” (Apple TV+) Jesse Eisenberg, “Fleishman Is in Trouble” (FX) Woody Harrelson, “White House Plumbers” (HBO) Jake Lacy, “A Friend of the Family” (Peacock) Ewan McGregor, “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Disney+) Kumail Nanjiani, “Welcome to Chippendales” (Hulu) Evan Peters, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (Netflix) Jesse Plemons, “Love and Death” (HBO Max) Daniel Radcliffe, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” (Roku Channel) Liev Schreiber, “A Small Light” (National Geographic) Michael Shannon, “George and Tammy” (Showtime) Justin Theroux, “White House Plumbers” (HBO) Ben Whishaw, “This is Going to Hurt” (AMC+)
More Limited Series and TV Movie Category Predictions: Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series Outstanding TV Movie Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie
To see IndieWire’s full set of predictions for the 75th Emmy Awards click here.
Last Year’s Winner: Michael Keaton, “Dopesick” Still Eligible: No. Hot Streak: If Nanjiani were to win (and we’re not counting FX-produced shows), Hulu would be the first network in 13 years to win this category two years in a row. Notable Ineligible Series: Jon Hamm, “Fargo” (Season 5 was not eligible); Bryan Tyree Henry, “Class of ’09” (the season will not air in time to be eligible); Jesse Garcia, “Flamin’ Hot” (the film will not premiere in time to be eligible)
A poster-wrapped window for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which kicks off at State Farm Stadium on March 17 and 18, is shown next to one of the entrances to the stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on March 13, 2023.
In honor of the Eras Tour, we’re ranking Taylor Swift’s singles from her debut!
The music world changed when Taylor Swift entered the chat. Despite being a teenager when she became famous, Taylor Swift immediately became the face of country music.
While we know her as more of a pop icon, Swift was unlike anything country music fans had seen before. Yes, there were incredible female country artists such as Dolly Parton, Faith Hill, and Reba McIntire. However, no one was giving that fresh teen perspective that most of us were craving when her album first came out.
Since the release of the album, Taylor Swift has changed her image a lot but it’s clear the album still holds a special place in a lot of fans’ hearts. I mean she wouldn’t be doing an Eras tour for anything, right?
Speaking of the Eras tour, I thought it’d be fun to go back through and re-listen to Taylor Swift’s debut album and rank the singles from the album.
Before getting into the rankings, I just wanted to share a bit of info about the album as a whole. Taylor Swift was released on October 24th, 2006 by Big Machine Records and gave us some of the most unforgettable songs of that decade.
The album featured a tracklist of 11 songs including 5 singles. There were also multiple different variations of the album including a Deluxe Edition and even, a special Best Buy digital track which was “I Heart ?” For a debut, I must say that I really loved this album as I own the CD and remember listening to it repeatedly upon its release.
Fans don’t seem to love this album as much as others and usually, it ends up pretty low in their rankings. As this was my first Taylor album, it holds a special place in my heart and is still one of my favorite eras of hers so let’s rank the 5 singles from her debut era.
Critically acclaimed and Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges has graced the world’s top opera stages and venues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bridges emerged as a leading figure in conversations surrounding inclusion and racial justice in the arts. J’Nai Bridges Unamplified, directed by Christine Turner, captures Bridges in this pivotal moment, preparing for her solo in “A Knee on the Neck,” a choral tribute to George Floyd.
In this conversation with American Masters, Bridges shared songs which represent the past, present and future of music for her.
In The Making – About J’Nai Bridges and Rissi Palmer
Past: What is a song that helped inspire you to become the artist you are today?
A song that’s helped to inspire me to become the artist I am today is actually a prayer, and it’s “The Lord’s Prayer,” which is sung often in the church. And I grew up singing this song from a really young age. I actually opened just about every recital that I sing with “The Lord’s Prayer,” a classical arrangement of it.
I’ve been singing that since I was a little girl before, you know, before I knew I even loved to sing. So it’s something that I always draw back toward. And I listen to the words and it inspires me to live out my full potential.
Present: What is a contemporary song from outside of opera that has excited you?
Oh, gosh, there are so many. But I grew up on Motown and Marvin Gaye is and was one of the ultimate artists for me. And the song “What’s Going On,” it’s just so relevant and I feel like it always is, always has been. And also the music has such an accessible beat, the rhythm and the harmonies and the harmonics.
It’s such a good song, and it inspires me, not to sound cheesy, but to do my part in healing this crazy world and asking those questions, you know, like, what’s going on?
Future: Is there a song that you think represents where opera could be headed into the future?
I can’t really think of a song that I think is necessarily going to represent what opera is going to be in the future, because I just don’t know. But what I do think opera could benefit from in the future is collaborating with different genres, cross-genre collaboration. I’m very much interested in that and I’m looking forward to my tour recitals on the West Coast with my friend Ulysses Owens and his trio; he’s a jazz drummer.
So I think that cross-genre collaboration is definitely something that should be a part of the future of opera sound, whatever that may be.
Six months into her gig as host of her own MSNBC show, amid an “absolutely bonkers” news cycle that shows “no signs of letting up,” Alex Wagner says viewers are “getting used” to her after Rachel Maddow passed her the Tuesday through Friday baton and stuck to just Mondays.
“They’re coming to get to know me,” the “Alex Wagner Tonight” host told TheWrap, adding that some viewers knew her from her first iteration as a daytime MSNBC host on “Now With Alex Wagner.” “It’s a lot to ask someone to tune in and spend an hour with a stranger on four nights of the week, and I’ve been really so heartened and enthused by the reaction I’ve gotten from people who didn’t know [me] before.”
While Wagner’s debut had the somewhat daunting task of taking over the bulk of Maddow’s time slot, Wagner has proven herself as a compelling host. “Alex Wagner Tonight” has consistently doubled CNN’s total audience during her hour.
Since the MSNBC series’ launch in August, Wagner’s show has consistently overtaken CNN in total viewers each month, with February marking recent successes as the show beat CNN in the key cable demographic among adults 25-54 with its strongest lead over CNN in both demos.
Wagner, who reiterates her goal to “bring perspective to the stories to make people smarter [and] help them engage with the story and understand it from 360 degrees,” attributes success among viewers in part to her field stories, which she identifies as “an essential part of the DNA of the show.”
The field stories have brought Wagner and her team to a Florida school named New College, where Wagner spoke with students and parents about their organizing against their governor’s “war on woke”; to Wisconsin, where the team met with election workers ahead of the November election to discuss their concerns about election deniers; and to migrants who had been shipped north by southern governors in a “political stunt … with a real human cost.”
“What we’ve tried to do is look at these really hot button political issues, but understand the human element that’s central to all of them and to show our audience what’s happening by actually going to the place itself and talking to the people involved,” she said. “We just got a really, I think, unique and critically important, firsthand perspective on issues that otherwise, to the ordinary viewer, can seem abstract.”
Wagner’s emphasis on reporting on the ground is just one way the former “The Circus” host has experimented with switching up the show’s format, as the “Alex Wagner Tonight” team balances in-depth interviews in a constantly shifting breaking news environment.
“I said, when the show started, that it was going to be an evolution, and I think you’ve seen some of that on air — we’re trying out different stuff — and I think we’re figuring out what works,” Wagner said. “I feel really proud of the way that we’ve moved through the last six months, with an amount of humility, but also ambition and a sense of real responsibility to cover the news in a way that it deserves to be covered.”
As Wagner preps for the looming indictment of former president Donald Trump, which she calls a “large storm front that shows no sign of passing,” she has her eyes on the upcoming “cataclysmic events” she anticipates will shakeup not just American politics, but the nation’s history more broadly.
“The Republican Party is going through a fairly seismic change, and that has profound effects on American democracy,” Wagner said, noting that understanding the effects of the Republican Party’s “change in vision and orientation” is critical.
As the nation undergoes what Wagner identifies as “a pivotal moment in terms of what it means to be an American,” she emphasizes the importance of understanding the ways American society more broadly is changing as a result of the “new brand of GOP conservatism.”
Wagner also notes the current political impasse reflects the changing face of America, as “the tension that we’re seeing right now can be distilled into those who embrace change, and those who seek to stave it off.”
At the premiere of “Alex Wagner Tonight,” Wagner became the only Asian American to host a primetime cable news program. She sees herself as a “change agent” as someone who’s of mixed race, and she welcomes the opportunity to tackle topics of identity.
“That’s sort of essential to my DNA,” she said. “Unpacking the questions of American identity are critical, not just because those are issues I grappled with, but because that’s something that everyone is grappling with to a certain degree in this changing America.”
To this point, Wagner’s career has been nothing if not wide-ranging, seeing her serve as a contributor to The Atlantic, a co-host of “CBS This Morning” and editor in chief for music magazine Fader. The latter had her covering everything from violet funk to trap music to Chicago house to folk rock, and she even hinted at hosting less traditional guests outside of politics on her show.
“In the coming months, you’ll see a few more folks who aren’t necessarily rooted in the world of policy and politics and government, but are coming from … worlds outside of politics, whether that’s arts, or entertainment, or literature,” Wagner said, teasing that viewers will “see a slightly broader array of people on the show when it makes sense.”
While Wagner admits that it’s hard to make a case for a musician to come on the show to discuss Trump’s latest move, she admits a case could be made.
“I would say artists are often some of the most politically savvy people in society,” Wagner said. “They are many ways interlocutors for the rest of society; they help us understand how to think about things that are dramatic and tumultuous.”
YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips and two other Linus Media Group YouTube channels have been restored after a major hack allowed a bad actor to do things like livestream crypto scam videos, change channel names, and even delete videos. In a new video, owner Linus Sebastian explains that the breach bypassed things like password and two-factor protections because the bad actor targeted the session tokens that keep you logged in to websites.
According to Sebastian, someone on the Linus Media Group’s team downloaded “what appeared to be a sponsorship offer from a potential partner” and launched the included PDF with the terms of that offer. But Sebastian says this offer actually included malware that accessed “all user data from both their installed browsers” — including session tokens — which effectively gave the bad actor “an exact copy” of the browsers that they could export and use to wreak havoc without needing to enter security credentials.
Linus Tech Tips, TechLinked, and Techquickie are all back, but Sebastian has some suggestions for YouTube to prevent future breaches of a similar nature. For example, he’d like to see greater security options for certain channel attributes (according to Sebastian, you can change the name of a channel without having to enter a password or use two-factor authentication) and some kind of confirmation or verification request if somebody tries to mass delete videos.
“After being alerted by the Linus Tech Tips team that their account was compromised due to unauthorized access, our team investigated the issue and worked with them to secure and restore their account,” YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said in a statement to The Verge. We’ve asked if the company will be making any changes to help fight breaches like this in the future.
These sorts of YouTube channel takeovers have become increasinglycommon as of late, and changes like Sebastian’s recommendations would hopefully prevent them from happening in the future. I do recommend watching Sebastian’s full video explanation, which includes more details about what went down. But be warned: the video includes some security footage of a naked (though blurred) Sebastian in his house as he works to figure out what’s going on.
Update March 24th, 2:03PM ET: Added statement from YouTube.
Here’s a quick demo of the new Feedly dark theme and left navigation bar updates:
More visible Add Content (+)
The profile and add content are now more visible in a left band. Team users will also be able to more easily add new teammates and share feeds and boards.
The new left band
Pin or unpin
You can continue to pin or unpin the navigation bar
Unpinned
Right-click Menus
You can right click on a feed, a source, a board, or a priority and use the contextual menu to quickly manage your resources.
Right-click on any object
Easily rename inline
Renaming your feeds, sources, boards, and priorities is a lot easier.
Rename inline
Drag and sort
Drag and drop and easily re-order your categories.
Drag and sort sections
This impacts both the order in the left navigation and the order of the sections in the Today page.
A Cool New Dark Theme
The day/night icon on the left band makes it easy to switch from the default white theme to the new cool dark theme.
Thank you!
We would like to thank Gregoire Vella for leading the design of these two projects. We are very excited to have Gregoire as part of the design team. He has a really sharp eye and he is a pleasure to work with.
We would also like to thank the Feedly Lab community and Twitter community for all the bugs and suggestions reported during the beta.
We are continuously shifting to a more open and collaborative process. If you are actively using Feedly and want to share ideas or frustrations, please join the Feedly Lab Community on Slack or Twitter.
A good revenge story never goes out of style. Even if it starts with something as petty as a middle finger after a near-fender bender. Who hasn’t been there? Things get heated in traffic, and the next thing you know, you’re screaming words that would make Quentin Tarantino blush at a perfect stranger. That’s seemingly the premise of the upcoming series Beef, starring Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Nope) and Ali Wong (Always Be My Maybe).
The Netflix series comes from the ever-impressive minds at A24 (The Witch, Midsommar, Hereditary). The official synopsis for Beef reads: “Beef” follows the aftermath of a road rage incident between two strangers. Danny Cho, a failing contractor with a chip on his shoulder, goes head-to-head with Amy Lau, a self-made entrepreneur with a picturesque life. The increasing stakes of their feud unravel their lives and relationships in this darkly comedic and deeply moving series. A trailer for the black comedy/drama recently landed online. Here’s a recap of the footage.
Everyday Rage
Netflix
The trailer begins with an ethereally tinged rendering of “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins playing as a woman named Amy (Wong) sits behind the wheel of her car in a garage staring blankly into nothing. A presumed significant other asks her if she’s ok. She hesitates and flashes a big fake smile. The trailer then cuts to a man (Yeun) standing beside a pickup truck on a hillside staring at a bleak earnings report on his phone while chomping on a cheeseburger and sobbing into the hood. He laments “hustling his whole life” and the nowhere it has led him to as the shot cuts between his own false smile and true despair in private and Amy’s similar situation.
A zoning out Danny sits parked behind the wheel as the audio reduces to a shrill beep, and he makes a white-knuckled fist aimed at his steering wheel. He backs out of the spot only to get a seemingly unending horn from an approaching car. He screams out the window at the driver, who pulls away, stops, and flips him off out the window. The last straw is Danny throwing the truck into gear and pursuing the white SUV that pushed him over the edge he’s seemingly been living on.
As the iconic Pumpkins riff continues, Danny weaves in and out of traffic, searching for the SUV. He catches up, and the driver isn’t any less demented at the moment and swerves at his truck, causing him to jump a curb into a corner flower bed. He ends up back on the road with the SUV in reverse, flying at his driver’s side. As the crash concludes, Amy is jolted awake, and the trailer goes to shots of her living her “perfect” life with her husband and child, complete with a nice house and inground swimming pool. “I have a very full like I’d like to get back to, but I’m going to find you and take what little you have,” says Amy.
Becoming Unhinged
Netflix/A24
Danny is seen sitting by a bed with numerous portal grills lit in the room, and it cuts to him frantically talking on the phone on the walkway of an apartment complex. His turn to taunt, Danny sneers to Amy that she is a lowly suburban housewife stuck in a life she hates despite her high society status. Amy is next seen screaming with a gun pointed at her cell phone as her bewildered husband enters the room.
Danny is shown fumbling on and rolling down Amy’s front steps with a large hammer, proclaiming himself a “dangerous guy.” Shots of his life follow, including him hanging from a tree in what looks like a parachute, playing pickup basketball, and grilling with a friend. He continues to issue a warning to Amy to leave him alone as we see him shadily walking up to her white SUV, dousing it in lighter fluid, and striking a match.
Getting Personal
Netflix/A24
Danny and a few friends are shown dashing down a hallway toward Wong’s Amy as she wags a finger at him, and a police officer cuffs him. In conversation with another woman, a hint of class warfare is suggested with the line, “I just don’t understand what those people are so angry about.” It cuts to a yellow stain on a carpet and hardwood floor and an enraged gun-wielding Amy screaming about someone urinating on her expensive flooring.
Yeun’s Danny is seen weeping in what looks like a church service, followed by Amy putting on a forced laugh. “You’re born, you make choices, and suddenly you’re here,” says Danny, next seen about to hit someone with a wrench. The trailer builds with a flashing mashup of the adversaries’ lives ending with the line, “Maybe normal people are just delusional.” Finally, it ends with a face-to-face confrontation between the two in their respective cars, right back where it started.
A new Steam sale is offering discounts as large as 96 percent off on some of the best games available on the digital PC storefront. As a result, the games in question are as cheap as $0.79 and $0.99. The sale is called the Valve Complete Pack Sale and it offers, as the name suggests, deep discounts on games from Valve. So, if you haven’t dabbled in series like Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, or Portal, now is a great time to remedy this. That said, the sale and every individual deal that comprises is set to expire on March 23.
You can find every deal here, but the main offers involve Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, and Portal. Across these three series, PC gamers can check out the following classic for only $0.99: Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal, and Portal 2. Each of these games is only a single dollar, the lowest they’ve ever been made on the platform. They’ve been made a dollar in the past, but never cheaper than this. And these games aren’t just some of the most critically acclaimed games on Steam, but some of the most popular as well. Unfortunately, the deals are limited to older entries and the core series, for the most part. In other words, there’s no crazy discount for games like Half-Life: Alyx.
In addition to piece meal, the games can be had all together in one giant 22-game bundle. Normally, you’d need to pay $145.82 to buy every game, but you can have all of them for $6.54, courtesy of a 96 percent discount. That’s roughly $139 of savings. You can’t beat that.
For more coverage on all things PC gaming and all things gaming in general — including all of the latest news, rumors, leaks, speculation, deals, reviews, previews, interviews, and hot takes — click here. Meanwhile, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think. Will you be cashing in on any of these deals?
Bonjour, Insiders. Jesse Whittock with you as another busy week in entertainment land draws to a close. Max and I were in Lille France for Series Mania for most of it, where encountered everything from Hollywood stars to raging rioters. Read on and sign up for the newsletter here.
Mania On The Streets
Riot police officers run onto the violet carpet of the festival to push back protesters against the pension reform in France as they try to invade the carpet of the Series Mania festival on March 21, 2023 in Lille, France
Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images
Thou doth protest too much: Across France, civil unrest has been breaking out all week as anger over heavy-handed pension reforms bubbles over. Delegates walking the quiet, chilly streets of Lille for Series Mania this week were caught up in the chaos (Deadline’s International TV Co-Editors included), as protestors attempted to storm the purple carpet and rioters burned refuse piles in the backstreets. Attendees took it all in good spirits and broadly chose to focus on the screen content, not the fresh graffiti adorning windows and flaming trashcans warming the roads. President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension reforms are also upsetting France’s film and TV stars. More than 300 leading figures, including Juliette Binoche and Camille Cottin, are backing a petition against the plan to raise retirement age from 62 to 64.
Joy to the world: However, the unsettling backdrop didn’t stop the annual Series Mania confab from once again delivering a week of high-end debate, producer meetings and parties. A highlight pour moi was sitting down with Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy for an onstage interview about her life and career. She sagely noted Westworld had seemingly gone from “sci-fi to documentary film” as the real world turned progressively darker and the show’s themes became more contemporary, and hinted at what a fifth season might have looked like (HBO pulled the plug on the show last year). Sounds like the rise of AI through ChatGPT and other apps would have informed the plot.
Dialogue heavy: Throughout the week, the likes of Amazon, HBO, Sky Studios, Disney+, Paramount+ and Netflix showcased their latest slates and discussed hot button topics like the potential of a U.S. writers’ strike, talent shortages and making money from global streaming. During yesterday’s final day track Lille Dialogues, the bosses of French networks France Télévisions and TF1 both said making shows of real importance to French citizens was the way traditional networks can set themselves apart from the streamers, while Beta MD Moritz von Kruedener said the industry should “become a bit more Scandinavian” in its approach to funding shows. A full compilation of stories from the event can be found here.
And the nominations are…: The BAFTA TV Award nominations were out this week, with BBC dramas This is Going to Hurt and The Responder leading the pack. Both landed six nods, including Leading Actor for stars Ben Whishaw and Martin Freeman. Their competition includes Gary Oldman (for Slow Horses) and Cillian Murphy (for Peaky Blinders), both of whom gained their first nominations in the category. Overall, the BBC has a total of 81 nominations, putting it comfortably ahead of its nearest rival Channel 4, which has 33 nominations. Netflix scooped 24 nominations, while Apple TV+ was behind with 15. The full list of nominees can be found here.
Race issues: Awards remain a lightning rod for race issues, and as BAFTA trumpeted the number of older women nominated for this year’s awards, Jake reported a steep decline in recognition for people of color – down from 40% of nominees last year to 24%. BAFTA CEO Jane Millichip said the representation of older actresses such as Imelda Staunton was a “really impressive result,” but the organization was forced to clarify she wasn’t addressing diversity, which considers ethnicity and social status, in her comments. All of those up for Best Actress are white. BAFTA Deputy Chair Sara Putt later said the awards were “a barometer of what’s going on in the industry” but would use the data from this year’s nominations to inform thinking in the coming year. Comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett will host the BAFTA TV Awards at the Royal Festival Hall in London on May 14.
Greek Mythology
Coproduction Office
Heretic believes in co-pros: Diana’s latest International Disruptors article features the Greek producer behind the Palme D’Or winning flick Triangle of Sadness, the 2022 black comedy from Robin Östlund. She sat down with Heretic’s Giorgios Karnavas after he landed back in Europe after a whirlwind trip to LA for Oscars, where the film was up for Best Picture. Karnavas reflected on how his 10-year-old company has evolved and talked up the opportunity for transatlantic co-productions. “It seems like Hollywood is finally coming to the realization that firstly, there is a lot of talent here and, secondly, there are people who know how to put projects together and finance them with soft money,” he told Diana. You said it, Giorgios. Go deeper here.
Aussie Crime Rules
‘Last King of the Cross’
Daniel asher Smith
‘Last King’ crowned: Our new Global Breakouts strand is well and truly established now, and the latest title to come under the microscope is Paramount+’s Australian drama Last King of the Cross – think The Godfather with an Antipodean accent. Max wrote about the unusual partnership series exec producer Mark Fennessy struck up with the real life ‘Last King’, John Ibrahim, to get the show made. A few weeks back, Mark told me stories of controversial figures are rarely made while the person at their center is still alive, but Ibrahim is no usual man and wanted his tale out there. His is the story of the son of a Lebanese-Australian family who became one of Sydney’s most powerful nightclub bosses, and whose name is forever tied to the city’s murky underworld despite having no convictions. Max heard how producer Helium navigated tough Australian Covid rules, unexpected tropical rains and last-minute cast changes to create a series that is now Paramount+ Australia’s most successful original show and is selling internationally. Full story here.
BBC’s Distinctive Desires
‘Superman & Lois’
BBC
Taste for U.S. in question: Every few years, the BBC’s rivals will accuse the UK public network of too frequently dipping into the U.S. market for shows such as Superman & Lois in a bid to drive up ratings. ITV was revealed to have taken on that role this week, saying its PSB rival had “dramatically increased” the number of Stateside titles it’s acquired over the past six years. In its submission to a BBC review by media regulator Ofcom, ITV said this “sits uncomfortably” with the BBC’s remit to be “distinctive and take risks,” and blamed the BBC for pushing up prices by bidding for hot Stateside shows. Ofcom agreed, at least in part, telling the BBC it must explain how acquiring overseas content rather than commissioning British stuff supports the principle of “distinctiveness” and engages different audiences. The BBC is hamstrung in how far it can go with acquired programs as its publicly-funded model means most of its £3.8BN ($4.7BN) content budget must go on UK TV and film. More here.
The Essentials
The original Dope Girls novel and Old Compton Street, London
Getty Images
?️ Hot One: The BBC is lining up a “spiritual successor” to Peaky Blinders in Dope Girls.
?️ Another One: Shooting began on romantic drama Take My Hand in Australia, per Andreas’ scoop.
?️ One more: The unlikely trio of David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Aidan Turner are featuring in Disney+ series Rivals. Max and Denise broke this one.
?♂️Exiting: A Spy Among Friends exec producer Patrick Spence from ITV Studios, as Jake revealed today.
✂️Cuts: Around 25 roles will go at BBC Children’s and Education department, Max revealed.
? Legal case: Producer Amy Williams filed a breach of contract suit against the filmmakers behind indie drama Jacir. Zac had the skinny.
?? ‘Llama a Mi Agente!’: Eva Longoria will direct and produce a Spanish-language Call My Agent! remake.
Rwanda’s government has commuted the sentence of Paul Rusesabagina, the man who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” and was convicted on terrorism charges in 2021.
Government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo told The Associated Press on Friday that the 25-year sentence was commuted by presidential order after a request for clemency. Rusesabagina, a U.S. resident and Belgian citizen, is expected to be released on Saturday, she said.
“Rwanda notes the constructive role of the U.S. government in creating conditions for dialogue on this issue, as well as the facilitation provided by the state of Qatar,” Makolo told The AP.
The U.S. designated Rusesabagina as “wrongly detained,” and said that “the reported lack of fair trial guarantees calls into question the fairness of the verdict.” The civil rights activist denied all the charges and refused to take part in the trial that he and his supporters called a political sham, Reuters reported.
He did admit to being part of the leadership in the opposition group, the Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change, but denied responsibility for attacks carried out by its armed faction, the Forces for National Liberation, Reuters said. The trial judges said the two wings of the group were indistinguishable.
He was convicted of forming an illegal armed group, being a member of a terrorist group and financing a terror group. While he didn’t admit to the charges, he took a conciliatory tone in asking for his release.
“I regret not taking more care to ensure that members of the MRCD coalition fully adhered to the principles of non violence,” Rusesabagina wrote in an Oct. 14 letter to longtime Rwandan President Paul Kagame seeking clemency, which was seen by Reuters. “If I am granted a pardon and released, I understand fully that I will spend the remainder of my days in the United States in quiet reflection.”
Rusesabagina saved over 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide, when ethnic Hutus killed more than 800,000 people, mostly from the country’s Tutsi minority. The 2004 film, which earned star Don Cheadle an Oscar nomination, depicted him as a hero for using the luxury hotel in Kigali where he was the manager to shelter people.
He used the international fame he gained from the film to call attention to what he described as human rights violations by the government of Kagame, Al Jazeera reported.
Kagame’s government denies targeting critics.
In 2020, during a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Rusesabagina disappeared. He surfaced days later in Rwanda in handcuffs. His family claimed he was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda against his will to stand trial.
“We are pleased to hear the news about Paul’s release. The family is hopeful to reunite with him soon,” a spokesperson for Rusesabagina’s family told CNN.
Rusesabagina will initially be flown to Doha, and then to the United States, according to Reuters.
According to a TikTok creator who allegedly works as a host at a celeb-favorite restaurant in New York City, the creator’s friend, who also allegedly works as a host at that same NYC restaurant, escorted Gomez and Malik to their table and witnessed them holding hands and making out. The TikTok creator shared alleged screenshots of the alleged texts sent by her friend, describing the alleged Gomez-Malik hand-holding and out-making.
TikTok content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
In her now viral video, the creator did her own investigative work, and was able to determine that Gomez is one of only 18 people that Malik follows on Instagram, while Malik is one of Gomez’s mere 250 million followees. “This shit’s ’bout to come out,” the creator concludes through giggles.
Another reason to perhaps take this story with a hefty grain of salt is that fans have been shipping a Zelena romance since long, long before this creator’s TikTok went viral. It’s possible that the Selena Gomez and Zayn Malik romance is nothing more than some social media users’ wishful thinking. Still, stranger couples have happened.
Thursday, March 23, 2023 ratings — New episodes: Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Station 19, Grey’s Anatomy, Alaska Daily, Walker, Next Level Chef, Animal Control, and Call Me Kat. Sports:NCAA March Madness. Reruns: Superman & Lois.
Note: If you’re not seeing the updated charts, please try reloading the page or go here.
These are the fast affiliate ratings. The percentages represent the change since the previous original episode. (Percentages aren’t given for reruns or specials.) To see past ratings for a particular show, click the show’s link. The show pages are updated with the daily final ratings when they become available. Those pages include season averages to date.
“Magazine Dreams,” Elijah Bynum’s sophomore feature starring Jonathan Majors (“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Creed III”), will be released in theaters on Dec. 8, Searchlight Pictures announced on Friday.
The film premiered at Sundance and won the Jury Award for Creative Vision.
Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page and Harriet Sansom Harris also star in the intense drama. “Magazine Dreams” is described, in the official synopsis, as following “aspiring bodybuilder Killian Maddox (Majors), who struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence. Nothing deters him from his fiercely protected dream of superstardom, not even the doctors who warn him of the permanent damage he causes to himself with his quest.”
Our review of the film out of Sundance was mixed positive, with praise being heaped on Majors’ performance. “Anchored in his greatness, ‘Magazine Dreams’ can get away with most of its flaws,” the review read.
The film was written by Bynum and produced by Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros and Simon Horsman. Executive producers are Majors, under his production banner Tall Street Productions, Luke Rodgers and Andrew Blau. The crafts team is rounded out by director of photography Adam Arkapaw, editor Jon Otazua, production designer Freyja Bardell, and costume designer Bex Crofton-Atkins.
Majors is having quite the year, with “Magazine Dreams” winning him critical acclaim. Giant franchise plays like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Creed III” are keeping him in the public eye. There are assumptions that he will show up in the second season of “Loki,” slated to air later this year, given his presence in the first season.
Joni Mitchell and Cameron CrowePhoto: Bruce Glikas (Getty Images)
Although Joni Mitchell’s theoretical biopic has been a point of debate for years, it turns out she’s been working on her own with longtime friend and screenwriter Cameron Crowe over the last two years.
According to a write-up at Above The Line—which Mitchell seemingly confirmed by sharing on her website—the project lies somewhere between the realm of biopic and documentary with its untraditional take. Crowe is as close to a perfect fit as one could get for the project, as he’s been interviewing Mitchell over the course of both of their lives. The legendary singer-songwriter has entrusted Crowe to pen the script with her input when necessary, giving it more of an autobiography feel. The approach is complementary to the longtime music journalist’s work, who dramatized his own experience as a teenage writer at Rolling Stone in his Oscar-winning film, Almost Famous.
Crowe and Mitchell have remained close friends over the years, and in 2017 accompanied her to her first public appearance after suffering a brain aneurysm two years earlier. Recently, Mitchell joined Crowe at the premiere of Almost Famous’short-livedBroadway show.
“Every journalist has their dream list of interview subjects,” Crowe wrote in 1979. “Mine was Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell. I never got to Marvin Gaye, but Joni Mitchell more than made up for it. My last cover story for the magazine, and still my favorite.”
The Mitchell feature will be Crowe’s first film project since 2015’s Aloha, which failed to hit the critical and box office markers seen with Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Say Anything. The next year, Crowe created the Showtime series Roadies, which was canned after one season. The movie marks a bit of a comeback for both of the artists, as Mitchell has set her first concert date in over 20 years for this summer.
“Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV” profiles the ground-breaking video artist whose work in the 1970s and 80s anticipated numerous artistic and technological innovations that came afterward. Filmmaker Amanda Kim interviews Paik’s friends and admirers who put his legacy in perspective.
This footage shows how strong turbulence caused carnage on a flight from Angola to Portugal, leaving at least ten injured.
Three clips show how meals, trays, and plastic cutlery litter the aisles on the flight from Luanda to Lisbon on March 23.
Food and drink stains can be seen all over the cabin, including on the cracked and perforated ceiling panels.
A plastic tray can even be seen wedged in the gap above the overhead bins.
Media in Portugal reported that at least ten people, including two crew members, were injured on the Hi Fly flight operated by TAAG Angola Airlines.
Two clips show how meals, trays, and plastic cutlery litter the aisles on the flight from Luanda to Lisbon on March 23
Food and drink stains can be seen all over the cabin, including on the cracked and perforated ceiling panels. Media in Portugal reported that at least 10 people, including two crew members, were injured on the Hi Fly flight operated by TAAG Angola Airlines
TAAG said ‘adverse atmospheric conditions’ caused the turbulence, which reportedly struck as the plane was flying over the Democratic Republic of the Congo
TAAG said ‘adverse atmospheric conditions’ caused the turbulence, which reportedly struck as the plane was flying over the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Eight passengers required medical assistance, with a doctor on board assisting one of the injured.
TAAG said in a statement that an ambulance and medical team were sent to Lisbon Airport, where the flight landed at 8.37pm, seven hours and 18 minutes after take-off.
Portuguese media reported that many of the passengers showed symptoms of anxiety.
Heavy rain in the Angolan capital caused a flight to Lisbon scheduled for later that day to be postponed due to the slippery runway.
The European Union banned TAAG aircraft from entering into European airspace in July 2007 because of safety concerns.
The ban was completely lifted in April 2019, following a number of partial relaxations over the years.
EXCLUSIVE: Good Deed Entertainment has acquired North American and UK rights to the indie drama Midday Black Midnight Blue, starring 2x Emmy winner Merritt Wever (Godless), slating it for a day-and-date release in June.
The first feature from writer-directors Samantha Soule and Daniel Talbott, also starring Chris Stack (AMC’s Interview with the Vampire) and Soule (Godless), follows Ian (Stack) as he grapples with his shifting memories of Liv (Soule), a woman he once loved. For Ian, it’s a chance run-in with Liv’s sister (Wever) that sparks a journey in which he has a chance to reconnect to the light and fight his way back to life.
The film, which world premiered at last year’s Seattle Film Festival, is produced by Soule, Talbott and Stack, as well as Lovell Holder and Addie Johnson Talbott. Exec producers are Timothy Farrell, Conner Marx and Will Pullen. GDE’s EVP of Acquisitions Erik Donley negotiated Midday Black‘s deal for the company, with Double Dutch International SVP Mark Padilla on behalf of the filmmakers.
***
(L-R) Alexis Knapp, Ritchie Coster, Paul Ben-Victor, Natasha Henstridge and Brian Goodman
Getty Images/Manfred Baumann
EXCLUSIVE: Writer-director Emilio Mauro has rounded out the cast for his dramedy Another Day in America (formerly Social Capital), with Alexis Knapp (Pitch Perfect franchise), Ritchie Coster (Tulsa King), Paul Ben-Victor (Gravesend), Natasha Henstridge (Diggstown) and Brian Goodman (I Know This Much Is True) signing on to star alongside the previously announced Oliver Trevena.
The indie based on true events revolves around an ensemble of distinct characters as they each make their way through a post-pandemic day in an American office. In this office, it’s cultural guerilla warfare as they deal with misogyny, marginalization, perversion and mental illness. Also set to star are Daphe Blunt, Joey Oglesby, Preston Flagg, Damien Di Paola, Steve Memmolo, Marina Varano, Raquel Castro, Domaine Cabading, Jon Saphire, Kayla Harrity and Gary Bloom. Mauro produced the pic, with Trevena, David Womark and Alecia Jean Lebeda exec producing.
Knapp is represented by Elevate Artist Management and Roar; Coster by Gersh and GDArts Management; Ben-Victor by APA and Alan Siegel Entertainment; Henstridge by Buchwald, Atlas Artists and Bloom Hergott Diemer; and Goodman by APA.
***
Coral Peña, Nicole Byer
Katia Temkin; Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
EXCLUSIVE: Coral Peña (For All Mankind) and 6x Emmy nom Nicole Byer (Nailed It!) are set for roles in Thelma — an “action” comedy starring 93-year-old Academy Award nominee June Squibb, which has wrapped production.
The first feature from writer-director Josh Margolin centers on 90-year-old grandmother Thelma Post (Squibb), who gets duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson and sets out on a uniquely treacherous quest to reclaim what was taken from her. Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg and Malcolm McDowell round out the cast.
Zoë Worth, a longtime collaborator of Margolin’s, and producing partner Chris Kaye started developing Thelma after reading an early draft in their writer’s group, Rock & Roll Universe. The film will be their first produced together. Invention Studios’ Nicholas Weinstock and Benjamin Simpson are producing alongside Worth and Kaye, as well as Viviana Vezzani and Karl Spoerri of Zurich Avenue, which is fully financing the film. Zurich Avenue’s Tobias Gutzwiller is exec producing along with Squibb and Hechinger, with Kat Barnette co-producing. CAA Media Finance arranged the film’s financing and is repping its distribution rights.
Peña is repped by Innovative Artists, Luber Roklin Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman; Byer by WME, Artists First and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
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Eric Roberts, Taylor Armstrong
Getty Images
EXCLUSIVE: Eric Roberts (Babylon) and Taylor Armstrong (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) have taken on roles in the upcoming feature Guardians from State 46 Films.
The drama currently in production, with Rick Walker at the helm, follows two women (Cherish Rodriguez, Mackenzie McIntyre) facing life-threatening situations until one of them reluctantly finds her way to Reverend Willis’ (Roberts) church and the transformation begins. Roberts’ character is described as a charismatic preacher who can teleport members of his congregation back into the biblical time on which his sermon is based. Armstrong plays Dr. Renee Kennedy, whose path crosses with the two girls one night after a horrible incident lands them in the ER at her hospital.
Walker penned the script and is producing alongside Kennady Ritter and Chad Lunsford, with Noble McIntyre serving as executive producer. Roberts is repped by Sovereign Talent Group, Imperial Artists Agency, Miles Anthony Associates, Empire Agency and Scott Carlson Entertainment.
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I’m Charlie Walker
S&R Films
EXCLUSIVE: S&R Films has claimed international sales rights to the underdog biopicI’m Charlie Walkerstarring Luke Cage and Plane’s Mike Colter, from FAMM Films. Pic is coming off its successful domestic run via Shout! Studios and will now look to Cannes for its global pick-ups.
The film written and directed Patrick Gilles, taking place in 1971, covers the true story of Black entrepreneur Charlie Walker (Colter), who found himself at odds with racist competitors and a corrupt oil industry. Following the violent collision of two oil tankers which spilled millions of gallons of crude oil in the San Francisco Bay, the subsequent environmental disaster provided a unique opportunity for Walker. Despite the systemic political discrimination of the time, and sabotage levied against him from the oil company who hired him in the first place, Walker went on to build an empire and put significant cracks in the institutional racism that pervaded the region.
The deal was signed by exec producer and FAMM Films CEO Bill O’Keeffe, and Gato Scatena and Jordan Rosner on behalf of S&R Films. Sean Pope of Ramo Law along with producer Mike Regen negotiated on behalf of FAMM Films.
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Rosalie Abella
Jennifer Roberts
EXCLUSIVE: Deadline has an exclusive trailer for the feature documentary Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella, written and directed by Barry Avrich (Oscar Peterson: Black + White), which will soon world premiere as part of the Special Presentations program and Big Ideas series of the prestigious Hot Docs Festival.
Pic tells the story of Abella, who at 29, was appointed as the youngest judge in Canadian history and leaves the Supreme Court as its longest-serving current member. As Canada’s first Jewish female Supreme Court Justice, Abella reflects on a career that made her a human rights hero.
Without Precedent features interviews with Margaret Atwood, The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, The Right Honourable Paul Martin, The Right Honourable Joe Clark, Adam Gopnik, Charles Bronfman and Irving Abella, among others. Mark Selby, Avrich and Jonas Prince produced the pic, with Rosemary Sadlier as consulting producer. Watch the trailer by clicking below.
Next-generation social platform Spill has named cultural leader Kenya Parham its new global VP of community and partnerships. In her role, Parham will be the voice of the Spill community within the company and the face of the platform to creators, communities and media partners externally.
Spill, founded in December 2022 by a group of ex-Twitter employees, is named after the phrase “spill the tea.” It aims to recognize and reward culture drivers and voices from the most marginalized groups, in addition to crafting a strong advertiser and creator ecosystem with more nuanced content moderation.
Parham will create and execute upon Spill’s audience development strategy from the ground up, with a focus on helping onboard and support creators in the U.S. and in key markets abroad. In addition, this role will drive partnerships and activations with media partners, complementing movie premieres, TV shows, events and other culturally relevant moments people are talking about.
Parham will report to Spill co-founder and CEO Phonz Terrell, who was previously Twitter’s global head of social and editorial. “As a well-respected entrepreneur and industry veteran, Kenya has built relationships with some of the most influential brands because of her ability to create cultural impact through authenticity and innovation,” Terrell said in a statement to Variety. “We are thrilled to be bringing on this caliber of leadership at this stage of our growth because of her proven impact in entertainment, civic engagement and beyond.”
Prior to joining Spill, Parham led her own strategic communications, culture and brand strategy consultancy, The Legacy Firm, where she worked with major entertainment properties and production studios including Discovery+, Lionsgate Films and Amazon Prime Video to expand focus and increase engagement across inclusive brand and marketing campaigns in support of noteworthy, culturally-charged films. Parham has also served as a TV commentator, shedding light on political and cultural moments on networks ranging from BET to CNN.
Parham previously served as a writer and producer on the Food Network’s first-ever Kwanzaa series, “The Kwanzaa Menu,” which Variety exclusively reported.
Acknowledged as a founding ambassador of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Parham has been honored with special recognition by the Los Angeles Urban League, California State Assembly and Senate legislative bodies.
“Culture has always been at the center of everything I do because I believe that the people who create it should be the primary benefactors of its power and influence,” Parham says of her new role at Spill. “After being an entrepreneur for over a decade and touching different projects across so many sectors, joining Spill feels surreal, like the culmination of my life’s work thus far. I am excited to build a space for us to disrupt the social media landscape by supporting and elevating culture drivers.”
Apple is the latest company to begin hounding its staffers to get back to the office.
The Cupertino, California-based tech giant is tracking employee attendance at the office using badge records, Zoe Schiffer, the managing editor of tech newsletter Platformer said in a tweet Friday morning.
Apple will start giving staffers “escalating warnings if they don’t come in 3x per week,” Schiffer reported.
“At Apple, some orgs are saying failure to comply could result in termination, but that doesn’t appear to be a company-wide policy,” Schiffer added.
The forced reduction or ending of remote work is becoming a higher priority not only for Apple but for a range of entertainment and media companies – from Disney, where Bob Iger’s return heralded more demands to get bodies back at desks four days a week, to Amazon, which has told staffers they must show up three days a week starting May 1, to Warner Bros. Discovery, where efforts to push more people back to the office sparked backlash.
A range of issues are at play, from concerns about the hefty sums these companies are paying for office space that is sitting idle, to worries about productivity — some businesses are concerned that employees are moonlighting at another job while on the clock — and fears that younger staffers aren’t getting the mentorship they need to develop.
The amorphous “culture” also comes into play.
“It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo last month. “It’s especially true for new people (and we’ve hired a lot of people in the pandemic); but it’s also true for people of all tenures at Amazon. When you’re in-person, people tend to be more engaged, observant, and attuned to what’s happening in the meetings and the cultural clues being communicated.”
The efforts to shift remote workers back to in-person is showing fruit: office occupancy topped 50% for the first time since the pandemic began in January, although weather disruptions and other issues pushed that down to 47.3% last week, in part because of a 10% drop in Austin thanks to South By Southwest, according to security firm Kastle Systems Workplace Occupancy Barometer.
Among the in-office boosters is Elon Musk, who canceled remote work in the first all-staff email he sent after buying Twitter in late October.
It’s apparently still a point of contention at the social media platform.
“Musk sent Twitter employees an email at 2:30am saying the ‘office is not optional’ and noting [San Francisco] was half empty yesterday,” Schiffer tweeted.
Likewise, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a memo to staff last week announcing another 10,000 people will be laid off, said that the company is “targeting this summer to complete our analysis from our hybrid work year of learning, so we can further refine our distributed work model.”
Staffers reluctant to alter their new remote-dependent lifestyles are tempted to quit, but these widespread layoffs are changing the dynamics across the industries.
Zuckerberg included a section in his memo with the subheading, “In-person time helps build relationships and get more done.”
“Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely,” he wrote. “This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week.”
He continued: “This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively.” The company is still working to understand the data it has gathered, he said.
“In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person.”
Barry Walsh is editor-in-chief and content director for Realscreen, and has served as editor of the publication since 2009. With a career in entertainment media that spans two decades, prior to Realscreen, he held the associate editor post for now defunct sister publication Boards, which focused on the advertising and commercial production industries. Before Boards, he served as editor of Canadian Music Network, a weekly music industry trade, and as music editor for HMV.com. As content director, he also oversees the development of content for the brand’s market-leading events, the Realscreen Summit and Realscreen West, as well as new content initiatives.
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books, including Daisy Jones, are all so beloved. Were you aware of how big her fanbase was before filming began?
RK: I feel like it has only gotten bigger. On our plane rides over here, like every plane that one of us took, it either had somebody reading Daisy Jones or Evelyn Hugo.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is my favorite book of all time.
CM: Me, too!
I mean, I love Daisy Jones, too, but Evelyn is very special.
SC: Taylor’s amazing. She’s an amazing person as well. It’s been really special having someone like that kind of be so supportive of her book growing and evolving. It’s quite cool.
CM:Daisy Jones was one of the first books I read, like, recreationally and enjoyed. I hadn’t been reading for years.
Same with me! I picked it up beginning of the pandemic, and it really jump-started my love of reading as an adult. I just loved how it was written like a documentary.
CM: It makes it fun and relatable. I loved it so much.
And then, I love that the show is telling the truth essentially. Like, we’re seeing what actually happened, so it lends itself perfectly to a TV adaptation where you can add things.
RK: Was there a change that surprised you, Nora?
Billy and Daisy never kiss in the book, so I was honestly stunned that it happened, and it’s such an important moment that really changes how you view Billy and Daisy’s relationship, obviously.
RK: Did you like that change?
[laughs] Now I’m being interviewed. I read the book always thinking they had totally kissed, but weren’t going to reveal that to Julia, who thought so highly of her parents’ relationship.
SC: And I think the buildup to that moment is really well done.
Exactly. I think the buildup to Daisy not recording the song the way Billy wants makes that moment even better.
“I was inspired by the bravery of these women,” says Victor LaValle of the history that gave rise to his latest hybrid novel, “Lone Women.”
(Teddy Wolff)
On the Shelf
‘Lone Women’
By Victor LaValle One World: 304 pages, $27
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“History is simple, but the past is complicated.” says a character in Victor LaValle’s new novel, “Lone Women.”
In telling the story of single women who settled in early 20th century Montana, LaValle complicates traditional narratives of American frontier life. Consider it a variation on the theme of his life’s work. Over more than two decades, the author has won acclaim and devoted fans for mostly New York-set novels that subvert literary fiction by blending in horror and fantasy. His previous novel, 2017’s “The Changeling,” dove deep into internet culture, book collecting and parenthood with the complication of a possibly demonic baby. (It will soon become an Apple TV+ series.) “Lone Women” is a bit of a departure, though not as much as you’d think.
It started, LaValle told me via Zoom last month, during a trip to the University of Montana, where he bought a book: “Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One’s Own,” edited by Sarah Carter. “I was fascinated by all these women who went out [to Montana] to try on their own. I found out there was at least one Black woman homesteader, and that the Chinese population couldn’t homestead,” due to immigrant exclusion laws.
The result is Adelaide Henry, a Black, single woman who flees California after violence claims her parents. “There are two kinds of people in this world,” LaValle writes by way of introduction: “those who live with shame, and those who die from it.” Adelaide sets out first to Seattle to sign a claim, then journeys to Montana. Traveling solo, she bears only what she needs for her new life, including a heavy, locked trunk. Readers sense immediately that this is some kind of anchor chaining her to her past — and also something like the Ark of the Covenant, inspiring dread of the horrible truths it might reveal.
A western with horror trappings, “Lone Women” is also set on revisiting — and revising — that complicated past. “One of the things I wanted to get across,” LaValle says, “is that the tenor of a lot of old westerns is, ‘Look how bold and brave these white men with the law and the government and guns all on their side were.’ And I wanted to say, ‘That’s not brave. What’s brave is to go out there when you know all those things are allied against you.’ I was astounded by the bravery of these women.”
To depict them, LaValle drew on a family history forged by pioneering women of a different era. His mother fled Uganda’s repression, arriving in Canada and then New York.
“As I get older, a parent and a working person also,” LaValle says, “I think back to my mother coming to New York in her 20s in the late 1960s. Things are rough, not so great, but she finds a way to make it here. She has me in 1972, and things don’t work out with my dad. Eventually she gets my grandma over here. And the idea of just the two of them in New York felt to me very much like the energy of homesteading. The same boldness at leaving everything behind. I was trying to channel my admiration and love of the two of them into how I thought of Adelaide and the other lone women.”
Unlike many children of immigrants, LaValle says he was never pressured to follow a professional career path. His mother supported the family as a secretary, “but she was an artistic soul.” She painted, sculpted and played the piano, which gave him freedom when he decided he wanted to be a writer at an early age.
LaValle still faced hurdles; college at Cornell University was a struggle. “I was a mess, trying to keep my nose above water,” he says. One dean insisted he would never be allowed to graduate. But after taking a leave, LaValle persevered.
What really inspired LaValle was all of the reading he did as a kid. “The corner store was run by two sisters named Gina and Rose. And they would let you read comics on the spin rack as long as you bought something else. They had the energy of being aunties for all the kids.”
After comics, he remembers reading Poe. “But like many folks of my generation who love horror, it was Stephen King, who I was reading when I was 10, 11 or 12. Part of his genius was that he could write in a way that, as a kid of that age, I could get it. But an adult could read it and understand the deeper subtext.” From there, it was on to Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Shirley Jackson.
“Lone Women” incorporates some of the genre tropes that infused “The Changeling,” as well as another LaValle novel, “The Devil in Silver,” about a mental institution where patients were stalked by a monster. (A screen adaptation is in development.) But the new book is not horror per se; it’s more a novel haunted by the unseen specter of horror. And, in another departure for LaValle, it’s shot through with a strain of optimism. He owes that to another strong woman, his wife, the writer Emily Raboteau.
“It was during the Trump era, and so there was already a war on women happening,” LaValle recalls. “And she said, ‘It’s hard enough. I want to read this book and be happy for the women.’ And I said, ‘OK, Darling. Let’s do it.’ And then it was fun. It was actually very freeing because I knew this isn’t what you would expect to happen” in a Victor LaValle novel, he says.
The author also sought feedback from his agents, both women. They advised him on moments when a woman would be vulnerable in a way a man might not see. Raboteau, meanwhile, would talk him through what he was getting wrong. “The funny thing was that sometimes my solution would be that she would just beat up whoever. And my wife would say, ‘Shut up.’”
Not that Adelaide couldn’t deliver a beatdown. Thinking about the physical strength it would take to cut down trees and work the land, LaValle made her a physically formidable woman. She and other characters, like the inimitable Bertie — who makes a “special brew” in high demand — are not waifs of the frontier. Sometimes, LaValle confesses, he wanted the reader to witness Adelaide in a confrontation and think, “Could she kick that dude’s ass?”
We laugh, but it leads us back to the topic of how “tough” women are often portrayed. ”I don’t enjoy modern-day films where there’s scenarios with 10 soldiers in a room, and a small woman, some actress that weighs 105 pounds — and then she beats them all up,” he says. “I would love to see you have to think through how this particular woman could beat them without having to fight like Arnold Schwarzenegger.” He admits he was tempted to choreograph more fight scenes — before reminding himself he wasn’t writing an action movie in which physical violence was the expedient choice.
It’s just one of many ways LaValle was looking to turn the western inside out. The heroism of the lone hero in unspoiled wilderness is replaced by the sense of a place marked by absence: the expulsion and internment of Native Americans; the exclusion of would-be immigrants. One of the toughest challenges for LaValle was deciding whose stories to tell — and which he had to leave out.
“I wondered about the variety of characters, and the comfort I felt with who might show up or not show up,” he says. “There is a Métis trader who comes in, which also shows the porousness of the Canadian border at the time. I wanted the characters to acknowledge this history, not only that Native peoples were there, but explicitly talk about how we — the characters — pushed them off. How all of these underdogs also have underdogs. It was my hope to acknowledge the layers.”
One medium that allows for more play and more inclusion is television. LaValle is relishing the adaptation process on projects in development, especially “The Changeling.”
Kelly Marcel, showrunner of the “Changeling” Apple series, has worked to expand the source novel’s narrative. “Kelly was such an amazing collaborator,” LaValle says. “Right from the beginning, she said she wasn’t going to change the book — she was going to add to it. She saw that the book was told from the character of Apollo, the main character. And she told me that she wanted a lot more room for Emma’s character…. There are these moments of love and camaraderie between the women that’s lovely stuff.”
This, at least, is nothing new for LaValle, who knows he’d never have gotten here, to the top of his game, without women.
Berry writes for a number of publications and tweets @BerryFLW.
Alonso, along with Kevin Feige and Louis D’ Esposito, made up a triumvirate at Marvel that saw the studio launch from retaliative obscurity to box office behemoth.
Photo: Deadline
While Alonso’s quick, and under the radar, exit led many to assume that she was ousted, we now have more pieces to the puzzle.
A Shocking Exit
According to sources, Alonso was fired as Marvel’s president of physical production, post-production, VFX and animation.
Photo by Marilla Sicilia/Archivio Marilla Sicilia/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)
While the cause of Alonso’s termination remains unclear, sources say that the decision was made by a conglomerate of forces including human resources, Disney legal, and multiple Disney executives including Disney Entertainment co-chairmain Alan Bergman.
Furthermore, it appears that Alonso’s longtime boss Kevin Feige, felt he was unable to intervene and help her. The news reportedly blindside Alonso.
Photo: NY Times
A Storied Career
Since joining Marvel Studios in 2006, Alonso has helped Marvel become a box-office institution. Working alongside D’ Esposito and Feige, Alonso was instrumental in bringing characters such as Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, and Thor to the forefront of popular culture.
While she was held in high esteem by her Hollywood peers, Alonso began to face criticism in 2021 from the VFX industry.
. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
According to a slew of media reports, VFX artists complained about Marvel’s demanding expectations, with many artists going through emotional breakdowns due to the stress.
Alonso herself was identified by some artists a “kingmaker”, who kept a blacklist of artists who failed to meet their quotas, or left projects early.
Photo: Disney
These revelations were followed by a a torrent of criticism of the visual effects of Marvel’s more recent releases, including the Disney + series She-Hulk and Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which struggled at the box office.
At this time, Disney has not announced who will replace Alonso at Marvel. With the studio’s release schedule slowing down however, now seems like a good time for Marvel to stop and reflect before moving forward.
Image: Marvel.com
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The wilderness is calling and we are happy to answer. Yellowjackets is back for season two and things are already off to a chaotic start. While we’ve had to wait many months for its return, only two months have passed for our soccer crew in the woods. Everyone on Yellowjackets is going through their fair share of difficulty, but Shauna is having a particularly hard time dealing with the aftermath of losing Jackie. And what we see is both heartbreaking and disturbing. Let’s get into the Shauna and (ghost) Jackie happenings in Yellowjackets’ triumphant season two opener.
Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME
We discover that Shauna is spending a lot of time in the group’s meat shed. At first, this seems normal considering she’s known for her ability to skin and break down animal flesh. But, that is not what’s happening here. Shauna is talking to a ghost version of Jackie, with whom she’s playing a version of MASH. Interestingly, Jackie points out that future Shauna will be a housewife who marries Jeff and lives in New Jersey. Shauna rejects this and we quickly discover that she is not just talking to a ghost, but actually interacting with Jackie’s corpse. In the cabin, Mari points out that it is odd for Shauna to be outside talking to a two-month-old corpse. Lottie and the coach, among others, say it is okay for Shauna to process things how she needs to.
Meanwhile, Ghost Jackie insists on grilling her about the past, particularly the details about Shauna hooking up with Jeff. After Jackie presses Shauna about why she made the first move on Jeff, Shauna pushes her. She panics after realizing that Jackie’s ear fell off. Shauna puts the appendage in her pocket before going back inside the cabin. Later on, Shauna paces in the cabin while holding Jackie’s ear before she suddenly eats the whole thing like a potato chip, thereby becoming the first Yellowjackets member to participate in cannibalism. To be fair, she is pregnant and very, very hungry with little to no food options available.
Kailey Schwerman/Showtime
It’s not clear what will happen between Shauna and the Ghost of Jackie in the future. But Shauna eating that ear will certainly have some kind of affect on her as Yellowjackets progresses, whether it is a growing taste of human flesh or profound regret over snacking on her former BFF.
Mixing two parts maternal melodrama, one part fugitive thriller, and finishing with a precocious, child-actor twist, Nippon TV’s “Mother” format has proven an irresistible international cocktail, driving remake rights and series exports across the globe. Taking a victory lap of sorts at this week’s Series Mania Forum, Nippon TV’s director of international business development Yuki Akehi joined Spanish producer Eduardo Galdo to unpack this format-sales phenomenon.
Created by Yuji Sakamoto and initially commissioned for broadcast in 2010, “Mother” follows a thirtysomething schoolteacher who feels her first ever pangs of maternal instinct when confronted with an 8-year-old pupil from an abusive home. Instinctively absconding with the girl and heading out on the lam, the new fugitive and her willing charge forge deep bonds beyond a legal framework.
“It’s universal,” says Eduardo Galdo, who developed the Spanish remake “Heridas” for broadcaster Atresmedia. “Like a modern-day Hans Christian Andersen tale, the story shows different versions of motherhood. There’s cruelty, but it’s very human, and you empathize with all the characters, even the [child’s abusive biological mother]. You forgive her.”
‘Mother’
Nippon TV
In 2017, the series’ initial, Turkish remake “Anne” kicked off a flurry of format sales, leading to subsequent versions in South Korea, Thailand, China, Ukraine, France and most recently Spain, with the promise of more to come. Creatives in each market could tailor to particular tastes and hit different notes of emphasis while building on shared (and almost biblical) foundation that contrasts two opposing maternal figures and connects them through a child.
Nippon TV’s Yuki Akehi credited the format’s push-and-pull between manhunt and melodrama as a ratings accelerator, sharing data that saw broadcast viewership increase with each weekly installment. She also noted that in most territories, the child lead offered young performers a breakout role while activating viewers’ protective instincts. Thoughts of the young girl’s plight could even drive a gruff London cabbie to tears, Akehi added. (Just how the man got access to the Turkish version was a more open question, she granted).
As if to prove that thesis, the session closed with a flurry of buyer chatter as eager attendees tossed questions back and forth. Could the format work with fathers instead? What about grandparents? Where could it travel next?
Eagerly fielding those questions, Nippon TV used the presentation (and this year’s wider Series Mania Forum) to launch its newest format: the reincarnation comedy “Rebooting.” Like “Groundhog’s Day” with a more overt Buddhist twang, the format follows a young woman given the chance re-do things from the start – and then do so over and over again – in order to guarantee for her soul a more choice reincarnation.
Exclusive: Filmmakers Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor (“Leviathan”) go deep inside the body.
The phrase “turning the camera inward” takes on a new literal meaning in true body horror film “De Humani Corporis Fabrica.”
Not for the squeamish, the immersive experience from the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab is co-directed by “Leviathan” filmmakers Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor. The film debuted at 2022 Cannes and played at TIFF and NYFF.
Five centuries ago, anatomist André Vésale opened up the human body to science for the first time in history. Today, “De Humani Corporis Fabrica” opens the human body to the cinema. It reveals that human flesh is an extraordinary landscape that exists only through the gaze and attention of others. As places of care, suffering and hope, hospitals are laboratories that connect everybody in the world.
Valentina Novati, Charles Gillibert, Pauline Gygax, Max Karli, Verena Paravel, and Lucien Castaing-Taylor produce the film.
“Thinking about how modern medicine has used the tools of cinema to develop its own powers of seeing, we wanted to try to do the opposite, to borrow the tools of medicine for cinema, to allow us to see the human body in a way almost none of us ever get to see, and to break open the usual ways we look at our bodies and the world, to give us a view of our interior selves that’s more corporeal, more incarnate,” co-director Paravel said. “But one that also lets us glimpse our vulnerability: the fragility of life and the ever-present spectre of death. Filming in this way, largely ‘inside’ our bodies, also reveals the vital force that animates us and our fleshy selves.”
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Paravel continued, “We realized that the hospital is a theatrical space and a tragic one: It is itself a kind of body that contains other bodies and works on them. The hospital is an organ in society, which holds up a mirror to society and often prefigures social changes that are about to arrive. Within its confines, organs, functions, and systems coexist. This film is also an anatomical study of that body as well.”
The film uses 350 hours of footage across 30 different hospital units, and as the IndieWire review states, “De Humani Corporis Fabrica” takes the view that that “human body, beneath smiles, skin and hair, is a philosophically terrifying prospect, that all human accomplishment, emotion, and endeavor is a product of such ignoble fleshy puppetry.”
The review adds, “But the demystification of the machine that contains the ghost makes the feats of both the surgeons and the filmmakers feel all the more transcendent. For all the brutality of seeing dozens of screws glowing bright in an X-ray of a torso, it is just as striking that a spine can be rebuilt one block at a time, that debilitating illnesses and injuries can be repaired so routinely. Many of the surgeries thrillingly operate as mini-mysteries; given almost no context, it’s up to the viewer to gauge what is being operated on and why.”
“De Humani Corporis Fabrica” premieres April 14 at New York City’s IFC Center and April 28 at Laemmle Glendale in Los Angeles. The film is distributed by Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films.
[This story contains spoilers for the full season of Daisy Jones & The Six.]
Life is already messy without sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll making things more complicated.
Just ask the showrunners of Daisy Jones & The SixScott Neustadter and Will Graham, who address that and more in their Amazon series adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel of the same name.
Throughout the 10-episode Prime Video series, viewers watch the renowned fictional band Daisy Jones & The Six find their way to success and instant fame in the 1970s. But following their rise into a musical empire, it all ultimately crumbles and implodes amid a series of internal dramas. Led by Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) and Daisy Jones (Riley Keough), the self-proclaimed tight-knit family is confronted with varied hurdles, including substance abuse, unrequited and (dangerously) requited feelings, alongside the jealousy and egos that come with navigating the treacherous waters of fame and success.
In the final episode, unbeknownst to them, the fictional rock band has what would be their last show to a sold-out crowd at Soldier Field in Chicago. In this moment, their secrets breach the surface as Billy, Daisy, Camila and the rest of the Six ensemble realize that even the smallest of choices they’ve made have altered their lives and the fate of the band forever.
“What we were trying to craft in those final moments is every person — Daisy, Billy and Camila — all [having] really big choices to make. And those choices are getting made out of a better understanding of themselves, but also out of finally really understanding and loving the other people involved,” showrunner Graham tells The Hollywood Reporter.
“One of my favorite things about the novel is that it’s messy. These relationships, it would be great if they were really simple and it was easy,” Neustadter says. “I think the sort of push and pull the whole time is, can you navigate those treacherous waters without hurting feelings, without causing a big mess in your family? I just loved exploring that sort of territory.”
In separate interviews about the March 24 series finale, Neustadter and Graham sat down with THR todiscuss bringing the bestselling novel to life amid high fan expectations, the series’ love triangle, a surprise romance and that cliffhanger ending.
Daisy Jones is a book that was not only successful at the time it released but continues to grow a massive following of fans. What was your approach to adapting a book of this scale?
SCOTTNEUSTADTER I got the book sent to me when it was still an unpublished manuscript. I was probably one of the first 10 people to ever look at it, only because Taylor [Jenkins Reid]’s manager, Brad, knew that I was a big music nerd and wanted to share it — thought I would get a kick out of it. Reading it, I was really just OG fan number one, anticipating that everybody was eventually going to love it. There wasn’t a lot of competition because it hadn’t been published and no one knew anything about it. Similarly, when we did the adaptation of Fault in Our Stars, it was a book that hadn’t been published yet and there hadn’t yet been the fervor that would then grow and be very intimidating. I definitely prefer that because it’s hard to adapt something knowing that everyone is going to be scrutinizing every page and every change. Being the original fan that I was, really the goal here was to replicate the feeling I had reading the book for all of the people who hadn’t read the book or all the people who had read the book when they watched the show. I hope that fans of the book, when they come to the series, recognize that the changes we made, some of them were economical, some of them were creative, but all of them are within the spirit of Taylor’s book.
WILLGRAHAM Everybody who works on the show is obsessed with the book. That’s why we’re all here. What Taylor Jenkins Reid does in her writing and the passion and huge emotions and the world that she takes you into, we’re just trying to do that same thing for fans in a different medium. But I think what’s particularly interesting about adapting this book and what gave us so many fun opportunities is the novel is in the form of an oral history, so what you’re getting in the novel — and Taylor’s very conscious about this in her writing — is the story people want to tell 30 years later. We know from being humans that memory changes things and the way that people tell their stories changes. There’s also lots of moments in the book where you don’t quite know what happened. Our challenge in the adaptation was to answer some of those questions and unfold them. Ultimately, the book isn’t going anywhere, and as Taylor said, this just gives fans more to enjoy.
How did you select the music team to work with and shape the songs and sounds?
NEUSTADTER It was really the most crucial thing to think about. If we write this perfectly but we don’t have the music, I don’t think we’re going to be convincing that this is the biggest band in the world and these are artists. We talked to a handful of music producers and songwriters and then we were invited to Sound City, where Blake Mills and his partner Tony Berg set up camp and Mick Fleetwood first heard Lindsey Buckingham play the guitar. We sat down with Blake and Tony, and talked to them about what we were going to need. They were so excited about it and so enthusiastic. They’re both really musical geniuses. Tony was around in the ’70s. Blake was not, but has a real affinity for the sound. [We talked] about writing in a character’s head, having to write all this original music, but it’s going have to have a narrative function. [For example], we need a song that Billy writes when he’s really mad at Daisy and it’s like a diss track, and then he makes her sing it. Those guys were like, “That sounds really fun and also I’m going to round up my buddies Phoebe Bridgers and Jackson Brown and Marcus Mumford, and maybe they’ll want to write some songs.”
GRAHAM We were so lucky to get to work with Blake Mills and Tony Berg. In our first conversation with them, they said, “We don’t think this should sound like any other band. We think it should sound like an album from the time that somehow got lost. That fell behind the couch but you’re just finding now. It has its own heartbeat and it has its own sound and doesn’t sound like anything else.” Blake, Tony, Z Berg — who wrote a bunch of the additional songs — and the amazing group of songwriters they put together really approached it that way. I think what often happens in TV is you write songs into the scripts. In this case, we approached the making of the album as just as important as the show. Both of them kind of adapted to each other during the process and I think that’s part of why ultimately the album stands on its own and fans are engaging with it.
There is a scene early on in the show where we see Daisy performing and her guitar strap is a replica of one Elvis Presley wore. Can you talk about how that Easter egg happened?
NEUSTADTER It’s an amazing Easter egg and it was a surprise to me as well! I checked in with Frankie Pine, our music supervisor, and I said, “This is going around the internet, is it true? ‘Cause it’s awesome!” She checked in with our guitar tech who’s our guitar aficionado on set, his name is Danny, and he did it on purpose and nobody talked about it. I don’t think it was ever flagged for anyone. It was just something that he thought would be really cool. I can’t believe someone found it on the internet. That’s the level of dedication that people are watching the show is so cool.
GRAHAM You know what, I have to be completely honest with you. I did not know. (Laughs) But I was delighted!
One of the relationships explored in the story is Daisy, Billy and Camila’s. Can you talk about how you wanted to chronicle the growth and downfall of Daisy and Billy’s relationship in the series?
NEUSTADTER One of my favorite things about the novel is that it’s messy. It would be great if [these relationships] were really simple and it was easy. Billy’s married and he’s devoted to his wife. Camila loves him and accepts his failings. It’s much more complicated than that and real life is much more complicated than that. The relationship that Billy has with Daisy is a completely different one than the one he has with Camila. I don’t think Camila is jealous of that, but I do think there’s an element of understanding that she can’t give him that thing that Daisy does give him. The push and pull the whole time is, can you navigate those treacherous waters without hurting feelings, without causing a big mess in your family? I just loved exploring that sort of territory. Also, talking about the collaboration part of it, how when feelings get involved, that could also mess that up and can you have a partner who you have feelings for that you don’t wan’t to have? Even though they push you to do your best work, they might also push you to be your worst self.
Riley Keough (Daisy) and Sam Claflin (Billy) in Daisy Jones & The Six.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
GRAHAM What is interesting to me about all of those characters is that they are all really in love with each other in a way and want the best for each other. I think it’s episode seven, there’s something that Nicky says to Daisy about [how] life sometimes gives you someone who’s either a soulmate or a mirror and you can’t quite tell which one they are. That was something that we thought a lot about in shaping their dynamic. From the moment that Billy and Daisy meet each other, there is an instant connection that tells them, this person is someone significant in my life. They might be a friend, they might be a collaborator, they might be a lover and truthfully, maybe they don’t fit into any of those buckets. But there’s something pulling them together. The show asks the question, is it really possible to love more than one person? What does that mean and what’s complicated about that? I think and hope that like the book, it finds complicated and satisfying answers to those questions. But we never wanted Camila to feel less important. In some ways, she’s the soul of the entire show and the driving force of a lot of the big decisions that happened in the show.
We see Daisy and Billy struggle with their own obstacles, specifically with their journeys around substance abuse. How did you think about portraying the experience of addiction? What did you want to focus on and how did you want to do that differently through those two?
NEUSTADTER In the book, there’s that great scene where Billy is sitting at the bar and he is very tempted to drink and doesn’t. In fact, in the book, he never relapses. We talked to a lot of addiction counselors and experts on the subject and they said, “Sure, that’s possible but it is not the majority of addicts.” When all of this tension is happening, and Billy is on a downward spiral, the idea that he’d find himself in a bar — having lost his family, having lost everything and not slip — just felt like it would not have been authentic to the characters in the world that we were building. So we have him do the thing and then after that, there’s a messiness in that he apologizes and he says, “I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again.” But [Camila] doesn’t forgive him. She makes him work for it, and she makes him prove that that’s true and prove that he’s worthy of it. Ultimately, he can come around and say, “She was the love of my life.” She saved his life, she sticks with it. It’s a similar place we end that the book does. We just get there on a few more treacherous beats.
GRAHAM Both Billy and Daisy are people with big holes inside of them because of their families and the way they grew up. As many do in the world, you try to find people who fit into some of those spaces and when that doesn’t work, you also try to find substances or other things that fit into some of those spaces. We really wanted to handle those stories with a lot of care and authenticity. But what’s interesting about this show, especially for Billy, is that that’s such a familiar narrative in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. For him, it really is the beginning of his story and the beginning of what makes him complicated as a character. Getting a chance to tell a story, not just of someone’s crash, but of someone who’s really living in recovery and having a full and passionate life and balancing that with the things that they care about and the music they’re making, I thought that was a pretty extraordinary story to be able to tell.
Riley Keough and Sam Claflin
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Daisy and Billy’s breaking point takes place during The Six’s final show. Can you talk about their ending in that moment and whether you felt their relationship was true love or misconstrued as such?
NEUSTADTER Daisy comes to realize that she loves him but the version of him that will be available to her is the worst version of him. She’ll never have the version of him that Camila has. That realization triggers an understanding of what their dynamic is, but also she wants to be a better version of herself. Billy embracing her and saying, “Let’s be broken together” is giving up. It’s saying I lost everything so I’m bringing you down with me. There’s nothing less romantic (Laughs) than that in the world. We structured it differently from the novel, where basically Camila comes in and says, “You need to go now,” and Daisy says, “Yeah, OK. You’re right, I do.” This is much more each one of them gets to choose their own destiny in a way and they make hard choices.
GRAHAM There’s a word in Japanese that means someone you were in love with in another lifetime and that is the feeling that hangs over their relationship to me. Clearly, they’re meant for something together, but what we were trying to craft in those final moments of that episode is every person — Daisy, Billy and Camila — all have really big choices to make. Those choices are getting made out of a better understanding of themselves, but also out of finally understanding and loving the other people involved. Daisy, in that moment, sees who Billy is going to become if he decides to be with her and who she’s going to become if she’s with that version of Billy. I don’t think she’s rejecting him. She’s saying neither of us wants to be those people.
Can you talk about Camila’s decision to stand by Billy, despite the ways he hurt her? How did you want to portray their relationship differently than Billy and Daisy?
NEUSTADTER I felt this about the book as well, but Camila is the hero of the story. She is the heart and the soul of the entire journey. And ultimately the reveal is that this whole thing is basically a daughter [Billy and Camila’s] trying to figure out her parents’ marriage and how her mom could have made the choices that she made. Why would she bring Daisy into the band? It’s really her encouragement that causes Billy to accept all of the turmoil that comes out of that. In our version of the show, she is a part of this band. Their success is her success. She says, “I didn’t move here for you. I moved here for us.” This is her life, too, and she’s not going to let him spoil her life. She does what she has to do the whole time to keep that in mind. The one breaking point for her is if he fell in love with someone else because she’s put him first and all she really wants in return is that he puts her first. If he doesn’t, that’s when there’s no turning back. I was interested in that marriage. I think that there’s something really amazing about her strength. I don’t think anybody’s watching this saying, “No, Camila, don’t do it.” I do think there’s an element of that’s going to be really hard and I hope they find a way out of this.
GRAHAM Camila and Billy are soulmates and they’re on a journey together, and deeply in love with each other from the start. We wanted the audience to feel that Billy is never not in love with Camila, and Camila, in a sense, is never not in love with Daisy. She always believes in Daisy’s talent and her as a person and those things are unquestioned. The question is how they exist alongside of everything else that’s happening in the story. We also thought a lot about how Camila tells her story in the book and who she’s talking to. Obviously, she’s trying to be honest, but we thought — and some of this was in consultation with Taylor — the reality might have been a little messier. That’s what led to some of the choices around the old friend that she goes to see and some of the other moments of the book because nobody always has the answer.
Camila Morrone (Camila) and Sam Claflin (Billy) in Daisy Jones & The Six.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Camila is shown to keep her own secret: she has a romantic moment with band member Eddie. What did you want to explore there?
NEUSTADTER There’s this wonderful scene in the novel where Billy is talking about how Camila went to lunch with an old friend and they were gone for several hours. And then Billy says, “Yeah, I know that you don’t go to a six or eight-hour lunch.” It starts to open the door to the realization that maybe not everybody’s telling this interviewer all the things. The secrets that emerge were really interesting and you can get away with alluding to them in the book in a way that we would have to show and be a little more upfront about. We turn the dial up on Eddie’s feelings for her throughout the series, basically starting from the beginning. At this moment, where she’s starting to question if anyone’s putting her first, there’s Eddie and Eddie will put her before everyone else in the world. It’s a revelation for her that no one has done that and she deserves it. That moment just made sense to us. When it was first pitched in the writer’s room, I was like, “Aye yai yai. I don’t know.” Then the more we talked about it, the more we realized that it is there.
GRAHAM What we were trying to explore is exactly what Camila says in the show, which is: how do you, in a world where you’re surrounded by secrets and where there’s a lot of things happening outside your control, get some semblance of power back? She needed a secret of her own. What we’re trying to do there is just let the character speak authentically and let her have her own journey and have some parts of her life that are messy. And ultimately, have the places that she’s able to get in understanding herself and Billy feel completely earned.
Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
Camila and Daisy may be involved in a love triangle but they never pit themselves against each other. Can you talk about exploring their relationship dynamic where there’s still love and respect despite the ups and downs?
NEUSTADTER I think that’s exactly right. When you love someone, you are supposed to want the best thing for them. I don’t think that Daisy was the best thing for Billy for a very long time because she was unlocking some of his worst instincts, but then she changed and he changed. Times have changed. Obviously, Camila got sick and it was no longer going to be about the two of them. So what’s the best thing for the person she loves? Maybe it’s this, but also maybe it’s not. I think they had to go down that road to see for themselves, but they never would have if she didn’t bless it. It’s just everybody making a choice at the end that will hopefully end up being the best choice for themselves.
In interviews Camila films, why was she referred to as Camila Alvarez rather than Camila Dunne?
NEUSTADTER In the beginning, there’s a moment where she’s deciding whether or not to go with them [The Six] and that’s when we introduce her. If we were to say, Camila Dunne, you know where we’re going. We could have changed it after the first episode once we know that they get married and everyone’s together. But, she has her own identity. I don’t really view her entirely as Billy’s wife in this story. So to me, it was about giving her own sort of presence and point of view and making her own character.
Camila Morrone
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
With Simone, you expand on her story of a queer Black woman who faces painful hurdles as a result of their intersectional identities. What did you want to touch on through her expanded story?
NEUSTADTER It was really important to us that Simone had her own journey and that she wasn’t just there to help Daisy along with hers. We talked a lot about women at the time and how difficult it would’ve been for someone like Simone, who was queer and Black, to have any authority with the people she was working with. We talked to a lot of people who were backup singers at the time, some of whom would make their own solo album but they almost always were at the mercy of a male producer who was putting them in a certain box. If it didn’t work, the male producer went off and did a million other things, but the artists suffered and wished that they had an opportunity to raise their voice a little bit louder. Then, of course, you have the disco world which is so colorful and so cool and so rarely depicted. Especially that New York underground scene, in the mid-70s before disco really exploded. We wanted to do that and then talk about how even in a society where being true to yourself — and being out was far more acceptable in that disco world than it would’ve been in the rock world or any other places — you would have to sacrifice your true identity if you wanted major label success. We heard a lot of stories about people who had to silence that kind of thing.
GRAHAM You don’t go as far into her perspective in the book because of the nature of the oral history structure but we wanted to be able to do that. When we asked Taylor, “What would you want to see more of in the book that you didn’t get to see in the show?” she said more of Simone. I’m queer and I’ve always been fascinated by the stories around the roots of disco. Most of the time when we think of disco now, you think of Saturday Night Fever in terms of onscreen representation. But of course, that music came out of marginalized spaces — predominantly Black queer clubs. And for people who exist in those spaces, saying “let’s dance” isn’t substance-less. It’s a revolution. We’re going to dance despite the way the world is framing us and what the world is giving us. We wanted to embody that in the character and also acknowledge the extraordinary women, singers and DJs who helped create that sound that ultimately is still a huge part of our culture and our world today. Simone is so much more than just her identity. She is strong and vulnerable, and like Nabiyah Be [who plays Simone], she is a one-of-a-kind musical talent. It was so fun getting to craft that story with her and Ayesha Harris, who plays Bernie, who’s incredibly talented. It was a real joy for all of us to get to tell that queer story in the middle of this show.
Nabiyah Be (Simone) in Daisy Jones & The Six.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
You’re portraying decisions around abortion care through Karen at a time that was quite new, and a time that’s very different than now. Did you want Karen’s story to be through the lens of the ’70s women’s experience or a more modern one?
NEUSTADTER I feel like Karen is Karen and this felt so true to Karen’s character and who she was. A few years earlier, it wouldn’t have been as easy to do, but that happened to be a moment in time when it was OK and there were avenues to do what she needed to do. But Karen herself, I think she’s struggling with this moment because I think she does love Graham. I think she knows this is about to break his heart and there might be no coming back from it. But she has to do what’s right for her and what’s right for her is playing music. Ultimately, Graham is the one who lies and says, “I don’t need all these things. I just need you. I’ll be happy.” She knows it’s not true. It just felt like that was how these characters would find themselves in this situation, and this is how they would behave. It’s amazing that now we’re talking again about limiting those rights and making it harder for people to make the right choices for themselves.
GRAHAM That’s something we talked a lot about with our writer’s room. I think unfortunately in a lot of ways, maybe there’s not as much space between the ’70s women’s experience and the modern experience as we wish that there was. Women’s rights and their bodies have always been under threat in our country and we wanted to tell a story about that, that felt authentic to Karen and authentic to the book and give us a version of her decision that we didn’t feel like we’d seen before.
Will Harrison (Graham) and Suki Waterhouse (Karen) in Daisy Jones & The Six.
Lacey Terrell/Prime Video
This series features women in a band who are all different, yet standing on their own merits in a man’s world. Can you talk about depicting them navigating a world that is not built for them and surviving in their own ways?
NEUSTADTER One of the things that I loved so much about the book was the Karen-Daisy dynamic. Having one woman in a ’70s rock ‘n’ roll band would’ve been very strange. Having two is completely unheard of. I mean, Fleetwood Mac is one of the few examples. Then you have Heart and a few other interesting situations. More often than not, you would expect there to be some jealousy or threat, but Taylor doesn’t do that and I absolutely flipped for that. I loved that they would support each other and they would recognize how rare this is and how unique it was. Also that they’re different women and they have different abilities and passions and strengths. The fact that they could work together to make the band stronger was a great, beautiful element that I definitely want to highlight.
GRAHAM It’s something else we talked about so much with our writer’s room, but I think in that sense it really comes from the book and the feminist lens that Taylor brings to her writing — the female gaze that she brings to rock ‘n’ roll, which is obviously a world that we usually see through the male gaze. I’m non-binary and I think for me, part of what I love about these female characters is they embody a lot of parts of what we think of women in the ’70s, and then a lot of traits that you don’t necessarily think of. They all feel completely authentic and whole. They all have really strong desires. I think that’s such a credit to Taylor’s writing.
The fallout of the band is chronicled amid their final performance. What were the challenges of creating a live concert atmosphere amid COVID-19 safety protocols?
NEUSTADTER We took over this football field in New Orleans to film that final concert and they had to build this stage from scratch, which was an unbelievably challenging endeavor. On the day we were going to film there, we see the set and we can’t believe what we are looking at. Then all of a sudden you hear this chatter and whenever you felt this energy, you knew someone has COVID. It was Sam Claflin. They were like, “Maybe we can film around him.” I was like, “No, pretty sure you’re not going to be able to film around Billy Dunne at the concert because he’s going to be in the front and it’s all Billy and Daisy right now.” So, we ended up having to break down the set and come back a week later, which luckily, we were able to do. But it was a very intense, unbelievably bad-timing moment for our set. The following week, when we were able to go back there, everybody had been anticipating it and they were so excited to do it that you really feel the enthusiasm and the energy of them being on stage and finally being able to shoot these scenes that they’ve been waiting for. This was really one of the very first ideas that I ever had. I wanted to do the last episode as a concert film like Stop Making Sense, one of my all-time favorite movies. Being able to intercut with the drama, but then show the band at its peak, was important. Everyone was so excited to just shoot those concert scenes. It should feel like you bought tickets to an awesome show of a band that you love and have a backstage pass. That was always the goal.
The last moment of the series is left open-ended with a Billy and Daisy reunion but it’s unclear where their relationship goes. Why did you decide that?
NEUSTADTER My favorite movie ever is The Graduate and everything I do, I think, ends with that Graduate moment where hopefully we’ve answered all of your questions satisfactorily, but we’ve also started to ask new ones that you can debate on the way to the car. I hate happy endings. I’m really allergic to happy endings but I really love hopeful endings. To me, there was a lot of hope at the end of the book. Taylor and I both have talked about this a lot and we would never want to tell you guys what we think happens. But I love the fact that you can debate it and you can have different ideas about what happens next. There’s this thing at the beginning of this series where it’s basically [said] it’s not enough to meet the right person, you got to meet them at the right time. The question now is have they changed as people enough that the timing could be better or are there still too many demons?
GRAHAM Taylor’s book ends on a question and we did the same thing. I think you want the feeling of possibility. Maybe it has another chapter of these people, and maybe we’re at the end of the story, but it’s also a beginning that she did so beautifully in the book and we just wanted to do the same thing.
The Aurora album has been a success. Would a tour or live performance with the cast performing these songs ever be a possibility?
NEUSTADTER I mean, I sure hope so. I would buy a ticket. We made them do a show for us before we started filming and we know they can do it. They picked the set list, they picked the order, they didn’t have any accompaniment, they had to play all the instruments themselves and do all the singing. So we know that they could pull it off and we know it’s a spectacular show.
GRAHAM We would love it and I think the cast would love it, so we’ll just have to see what we can make happen!
Interview edited for length and clarity.
Daisy Jones & The Six is available to stream on Prime Video.
We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about lotsa shows including The Bachelor, NCIS, The Rookie, Bob Hearts Abishola and more!
1 | On The Way Home, how is no one wondering why Kat and Alice keep showing up with wet hair?
2 | LL Cool J is built like a brick house. So why did NCIS: LA‘s Sam wear not just long sleeves but layers for his bare-knuckle boxing match against a tank-topped opponent?
3 | Were you surprised that The Company You Keep‘s Charlie learned Emma is a CIA officer so quickly? And what do you think, did she recognize him at the exchange with Connor?
4 | What tickled you more — when Magnum P.I.‘s Thomas came clean to the guys about him and Juliet being together (because he is now so happy!), or the first #Miggy PDA that came after?
5 | Why did The Bold and the Beautiful‘s Ridge have to abandon his family and business for months to take part in an FBI investigation that, so far as we can tell, involved him doing nothing but growing out his hair, sitting in a room and trading quips with Bill?
6 |After Bob Hearts Abishola did such a beautiful job with Bob and Abishola’s traditional Nigerian wedding in Season 3, don’t you wish we’d seen more of the traditional Nigerian funeral processional for Abishola’s aunt? We’re also curious: Does the MaxDot sock factory have any other employees besides Bob, Kofo and Uncle Tunde? Or will the three of them be manning the machines — or is it just the one machine, as Bob was seen using in Monday’s episode — themselves?
7 | On The Neighborhood, were you expecting them to reveal that the (poorly CGI’d) mountain lion, not a raccoon, had broken into the Butlers’ home — especially after spending a third of the episode on Calvin and Tina’s unwelcome visitor? And was the local news reveal that the 100-year-old skydiver did, in fact, die after jumping out of a plane the darkest joke in the sitcom’s 99-episode history?
8 | We get that NCIS‘ Jimmy has been through a lot, is “the father of a daughter” and all that… but wasn’t his plan to menacingly approach Victoria’s male friend a bit extreme/OOC for the straight-arrow doc?
9 | How did The Bachelor‘s Kaity suss out that Gabi was the one Zach slept with? Did Zach go ahead and sleep with Kaity, since his pledge was already broken? And did he ever tell Ariel about what happened with Gabi before he dumped her, since he’s now being “fully transparent,” or nah?
10 | Didn’t anyone else find it odd that Quantum Leap‘s Addison and Ben didn’t anticipate Martinez betraying them? Why didn’t Ben push to crawl up before him?
11 |Superman & Lois viewers, any early theories on who Onomatopoeia is? Clearly a slender woman….
12 | Be honest, 9-1-1: Lone Star viewers — how long did it take you to realize that “Mouse” was merely a figment of Marjan’s imagination?
13 | Did Gotham Knights take considerable liberties with the grappling gun that Carrie used, with her not looking to see where the far end had attached, and how it supported Turner & Co. as they zip-lined, together, what felt like 20 city blocks?
14 | On The Rookie, IRL wouldn’t it be in bad taste for everyone to consistently refer to use the “Dim” nickname when speaking to a documentary crew about Jake Butler’s death?
15 | Was anyone else waiting for The Mandalorian‘s rescue party to call the raptor-snatched foundling by a name, any name, instead of always “the child”? As if no one knew him? (When he was no less than Paz’s son!) And were you relieved that we got to see Katee Sackhoff’s face again so soon?
16 | On Snowfall, will this week’s big death be enough to get Louie and Franklin back on the same page? And how crushed were you that [Spoiler] died after resolving to get out of the crack game?
17 | When Chicago Fire‘s Violet commented on Carver’s car, then watched him sell it and asked Seager if they were a thing, did you think something was being planted between Violet and Carver? Or are we reading too much into it?
18 | Are the other members of Survivor‘s Tika tribe totally underestimating Carolyn? And is the lovable Yam Yam perhaps getting a bit too cocky?
19 | Given that Chicago P.D.‘s Voight went off the books this week and Jesse Lee Soffer directing, did it make you miss Halstead even more?
20 | To echo several TVLine readers: If CBS wants True Lies to succeed, wouldn’t it make more sense to slide it to 9 pm behind new episodes of Survivor, rather than leave it to fend for itself at 10 pm, behind procedural reruns?
21 | When the women of The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip argued about periods and black eyes aboard a boat at sea, did you also wonder: How many boat rides from Hell do we have to endure before water travel on Housewives is finally banned?
22 | Has Station 19 ever gone a week without a firefighter taking some action or another that leaves them at risk of being pink-slipped?
23 | Was Grey’s Anatomy‘s foreshadowing so heavy-handed that it wasn’t of question of whether something would happen to the pregnant OB/GYN or expectant patient Andra but to which one it would happen?
24 | “This is a dish to save your life”?? Could Next Level Chef mentor Nyesha be more dramatic?
Hit the comments with your answers — and any other Qs you care to share!
“Ted Lasso” creator/star Jason Sudeikis’s newest competition for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series is Jeremy Allen White, the SAG Award-winning star of “The Bear.”
We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2023 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 15 to June 26, with the official Emmy nominations announced Wednesday, July 12. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be presented over two consecutive nights on Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10, with an edited presentation of the ceremonies to be broadcast on FXX at a later date. Finally, the 75th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards take place on Monday, September 18, and air live on FOX at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT.
The State of the Race
Last year it was a question of how well “Ted Lasso” star Jason Sudeikis would fare against Emmy winners Bill Hader (“Barry”) and Donald Glover (“Atlanta”), having never been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series next to them before. This year, the question is how well the Apple TV+ comedy star will fare against newcomer Jeremy Allen White, who swept the winter awards season for his performance in FX on Hulu’s summer hit “The Bear.”
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But that is just getting into the shows that have already been tested. “Beef” star Steven Yeun and “Shrinking” star Jason Segel have two of the biggest show launches this spring. There is also “Lucky Hank” star Bob Odenkirk and “Party Down” star Adam Scott, who were both major Lead Actor in a Drama contenders last year (and still this year for the former) diving into a new category.
“Only Murders in the Building” may have had a bit of a sophomore slump, but it has not lost any awards momentum. It’ll be rolling out a third season starring Meryl Streep (!!!) in the middle of Emmys campaigning, so there are still going to be a lot of TV Academy eyes on leads Steve Martin and Martin Short. Fellow Hulu series “The Great” is also back a little earlier, but still late in the Emmys eligibility window, as a way to keep star Nicholas Hoult top of mind, and secure him a second consecutive nomination in this category.
“Mo” star Mohammed Amer and “Ramy” star Ramy Youssef are involved in each others’ series, so they could have a “rising tide lifts all boats situation” here. Also “Unprisoned” star Delroy Lindo is back with his first major role since “Da 5 Bloods,” and his “The Good Fight” exit, so Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in particular has more exciting contenders than what can fit into six nomination slots the Emmys usually offer.
Current Contenders (In Alphabetical Order): Mohammed Amer, “Mo” (Netflix) Donald Glover, “Atlanta” (FX) Bill Hader, “Barry” (HBO) Nicholas Hoult, “The Great” (Hulu) John Larroquette, “Night Court” (NBC) Delroy Lindo, “Unprisoned” (Hulu) Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu) Bob Odenkirk, “Lucky Hank” (AMC) Adam Scott, “Party Down” (Starz) Jason Segel, “Shrinking” (AppleTV+) Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building” (Hulu) Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso” (Apple TV+) Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear” (Hulu) Steven Yeun, “Beef” (Netflix) Ramy Youssef, “Ramy” (Hulu)
More Comedy Category Predictions: Outstanding Comedy Series Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
To see IndieWire’s full set of predictions for the 75th Emmy Awards click here.
Last Year’s Winner: Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso” Still Eligible: Yes. Hot Streak: Should Sudeikis receive a third Emmy in a row, it would be an achievement only Michael J. Fox (“Growing Pains”), Carroll O’Connnor (“All in the Family”), and Don Adams (“Get Smart”) had accomplished before him. Notable Ineligible Series: Larry David, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (Season 12 was not eligible); Anthony Anderson, “Black-ish” (ended)
Queen + Adam Lambert are bringing their Rhapsody Tour back to North America for their first shows on this side of the Atlantic since 2019. The tour kicks off Oct. 4 in Baltimore, Maryland, and wraps up Nov. 11 in Los Angeles, California.
“This tour has lots of new bells and lots of new whistles,” Queen guitarist Brian May tells Rolling Stone. “We’ve evolved as performers, I think. We’ve stepped up our game. We have better chemistry than ever. We understand each other better than ever, and we feel more free in the way that we interpret stuff. We’re very happy with it. There’s lots of new production and stuff we want to excite you with.”
The set will focus on Queen classics like “Another One Bites The Dust,” “Somebody to Love,” and “Radio Ga Ga.” But they sprinkled in deep cuts like “Tear It Up” and “A King of Magic” in Europe last year, and hope to keep doing that.
“I always like doing ‘Dragon Attack’ as a deep cut,” Lambert tells Rolling Stone. “That’s one of my favorites… There’s a lot of time between now and when the tour starts in October to come up with new ideas. I think we’ll have many.”
“This show has evolved since its been in America since we’ve taken it around the world,” adds drummer Roger Taylor. “It’s quite a different show in a way, while retaining all the big hits, which so many people want to hear.”
Ticket sales begin Friday, March 31. In an effort to keep prices low and reduce scalping, the band is going to utilize the Ticketmaster Face Value Exchange, which makes it impossible to sell tickets for more than face value. “It’s an experiment,” says May. “We got sick of seeing our fans get ripped off by scalpers. We’re hoping this works out.”
“We want to protect the actual fans,” adds Taylor. “Seeing some of the ticket prices these days, I’m shocked. I don’t know how some artists think they can get away with charging that much. We’re just trying to keep it reasonable, a good deal for our fans, the people that want to come see us.”
Editor’s picks
Queen + Adam Lambert first played together on the 2009 finale of American Idol. They began gigging together in 2012, and have stayed on the road consistently over the past decade. Filling in for Freddie Mercury was a daunting task at first for Lambert, but he’s grown very comfortable with the job over the years.
“I feel less anxiety now,” he says. “I’ve matured as a performer. I trust myself a bit more. I will say that when the movie [Bohemian Rhapsody] came out, we had all these new fans, and many of them were young, I felt this little pang of, ‘Oh, these are new fans that haven’t been to a show yet.’ I needed to prove myself again, which is good. It keeps me on my game.”
The 2018 movie was an enormous success that grossed $911 billion and won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor for star Rami Malek. It ends at Live Aid in 1985, and there’s been scattered talk over the past few years of a sequel that would chronicle Mercury’s final years.
“We need a script,” says May. “That’s what it comes down to. It took us 12 years to get the script for Bohemian Rhapsody, and get the right team in place. I’m not anxious. I think if the right thing comes along, it might work. We have our wonderful producer, Graham King, on it. It’s a possibility. If the right planets align, it might happen.”
What’s less likely is a guest appearance on the Rhapsody Tour by Queen bassist John Deacon. He hasn’t played with the band since a 1997 show with Elton John at the Bejart Ballet, and has rarely been since in public over the past 25 years. “It is a nice dream to have,” says May. “It would be lovely to have John out, but he doesn’t want to and you have to respect that.”
“He would be welcome,” adds Taylor. “But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
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At the moment, this next leg of the Rhapsody Tour is just 14 shows, but it’s very possible they’ll tack on more. “People are buying tickets,” says Lambert. “And hey, we like performing.”
One thing fans are unlikely to see anytime soon is a Queen + Adam Lambert farewell tour. “Farewell tour?” says May. “We’re just getting started.”
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Queen + Adam Lambert 2023 North American Tour Dates
Oct. 4 – Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena Oct. 8 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena Oct. 10 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena Oct. 12 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden Oct. 15 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden Oct. 18 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center Oct. 23 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena Oct. 25 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena Oct. 27 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center Oct. 30 – Chicago, IL @ United Center Nov. 2 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center Nov. 5 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena Nov. 8 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center Nov. 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ BMO Stadium
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