October 28, 2022 · 1:31 PM
Coming to theatres today, Friday, October 28:
IS THAT BLACK ENOUGH FOR YOU?!?
Director:
Elvis Mitchell
World Premiere:
New York Film Festival 2022
Select Festivals:
Montclair, AFI Fest, Indie Memphis
About:
A definitive narrative of the Black revolution in 1970s cinema, from genre films to social realism.
October 28, 2022 · 1:31 PM Coming to
Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted a link to an unfounded rumor about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, just days after Musk’s purchase of Twitter fueled concerns that the social media platform would no longer seek to limit misinformation and hate speech.
Musk’s tweet, which he later deleted, linked to an article by a fringe website, the Santa Monica Observer, an outlet that has previously asserted that Hillary Clinton died on Sept. 11 and was replaced with a body double.
Read more:
Suspect in attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband previously lived in Canada: U.S. reports
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In this case, the article recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack last week in the couple’s San Francisco home, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.
Musk did so in reply to a tweet by Hillary Clinton. Her tweet had criticized Republicans for generally spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and said, “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.”
In response to Clinton’s tweet, Musk provided a link to the Santa Monica Observer article and added, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
The Los Angeles Times, the dominant news organization in the Southern California area where the Observer is located, has said the Observer is “notorious for fake news.”
Police in San Francisco have said the suspect in last week’s attack, identified as David DePape, 42, broke into the Pelosi family’s Pacific Heights home early Friday and confronted Paul Pelosi, demanding to know, as the AP has reported, “Where is Nancy?”
The two men struggled over a hammer before officers responding to a 911 call to the home saw DePape strike Paul Pelosi at least once, police said. DePape was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, elder abuse and burglary. Prosecutors plan to file charges on Monday and expect his arraignment on Tuesday.
Police say the attack was “intentional” and not random but have not stated publicly what they consider to be the motive.
The exchange between Musk and Clinton occurred a day after Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted that the company’s policies toward “slurs” and “hateful conduct” were still in place.
“Bottom line up front: Twitter’s policies haven’t changed. Hateful conduct has no place here,” Roth wrote.
Musk himself said Friday that he would form a “content moderation council” for Twitter and promised advertisers that the website would not devolve into a “free for all hellscape.” Musk has also described himself as a “free speech absolutist.”
But at least one major advertiser, General Motors, has said it will suspend advertising on Twitter while it monitors the direction of the platform under Musk.
Also on Sunday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she didn’t trust Musk to run Twitter.
Referring to antisemitic conspiracy theories that were advanced online by DePape, the suspect in the attack, Klobuchar said, “I think you have to have some content moderation.”
“If Elon Musk has said now that he’s going to start a content moderation board,” the senator said, “that was one good sign. But I continue to be concerned about that. I just don’t think people should be making money off of passing on this stuff that’s a bunch of lies.”
© 2022 The Canadian Press
Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted a link
Highest-Paid TV Stars
Variety has released a list of the highest-paid TV stars, who make $1 million or more per episode!
Shonda Rhimes appears to be done with Twitter following Elon Musk closing his $44 billion deal to take over the company.
Rhimes, who joined Twitter in November 2008 and has 1.9 million followers, posted a message Saturday suggesting she would no longer use the social media platform in light of Musk’s acquisition having been finalized two days prior.
“Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye,” the television mogul tweeted.
Rhimes did not offer further clarification and remains active on other platforms, including Instagram and TikTok. A representative for Rhimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
She joins other notable Hollywood figures who have stated that they will no longer use Twitter with Musk in charge. This includes This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin, who tweeted Friday, “I’m out of here,” after previously having posted, “The day @elonmusk takes ownership of Twitter, I’m out.”
Additionally, Billions showrunner Brian Koppelman recently tweeted, “Y’all’s, for real, come find me over on instagram and the tok. Gonna really try to take a breather from here for a minute or a month come deal close time.”
Musk has been teasing planned changes for Twitter. On Thursday, he tweeted, “the bird is freed,” and the following day, he wrote, “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.”
After previously raising concerns about a focus on free speech, including having said he would allow former President Donald Trump and other banned users to return, Musk assured advertisers in a Thursday tweet that the platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
Shonda Rhimes appears to be done with
In keeping with animation tradition, “Big Mouth” co-creator Andrew Goldberg assumed that — like “The Simpsons” or “South Park” before it — the adult-geared series would remain stagnant in time. So much for Charles Bradley’s “Changes” theme song.
Thankfully, though, no one else agreed: The crux of the in-your-face, earnest and raunchy Netflix show about puberty is just that — the rapid changes that occur in adolescence, from the pesky zits to the growing emotional maturity that stops everything in its tracks.
“Puberty is a defined time of life, and our kids are getting older in the show,” fellow co-creator Mark Levin told TheWrap in an interview. “Bart Simpson has been the same age for 30 years or whatever, but for our show, we really want to progress them through time, and they’re moving through eighth grade now. We want to be able to tell the story of puberty as a time of life, and when we move through that time, we’ll see where we’re at with the show, but we’re definitely still in it. We got a lot of stories left to tell.”
With a writers room already open for “Big Mouth” Season 7, executive producers Levin, Goldberg, Jennifer Flackett and Nick Kroll expect to move beyond that goalpost, though they’re not exactly certain how many additional seasons that would entail.
“We would like to see our kids in high school,” Goldberg said. “I think that would be really interesting and fun just because, like you said, it is unusual — one of the things about animation is usually they remain the same age. To be honest, that was my assumption when we first started. I remember [Levin and Flackett] were like, ‘I disagree.’ And I remember Victor Quinaz, one of our writers, really vehemently disagreed. What really convinced me was Victor said, ‘The show is all about changing. How could they not change?’ And I was like, ‘Well, OK, yeah, you’re right.’”
The comedy has already toyed with notions of the future, exploring a post-apocalyptic scenario where the future wealthy and lonely version of Nick (Kroll) has to choose the perfect plus-one with whom to flee Earth in the self-titled Season 4 episode “Nick Starr.” In a brief post-credits clip in Season 6, older and jaded iterations of Nick and Jay (Jason Mantzoukas) make good on their promise to complete the final two notches of the Rice Purity Test the latter wasn’t able to check off back in middle school.
“Part of the flash forwards, to me, are about this idea that your future is not fixed, and that everything you do when you’re 13, 14 weirdly does impact what you become and you have all these different paths to go down at this age,” Goldberg explained.
As for what else is in store for the sprawling world of “Big Mouth” (which now includes the workplace comedy “Human Resources”), the co-creators tease another special in the vein of the show’s previous Valentine’s Day and Christmas shenanigans.
“One could call it a Fourth of July episode,” Goldberg said — at which point Flackett chimed in, “One could, yeah” — “in a future season that we’re working on, that is not what you would expect for a Fourth of July episode. Should I leave it at that? Is that tease-y enough?”
All episodes of “Big Mouth” Season 6 are now streaming on Netflix.
In keeping with animation tradition, “Big Mouth”
CNN is pulling back on its original series and films and is looking to shift production in-house as a cost-cutting measure, as the organization pivots its approach to longform content.
According …
CNN is pulling back on its original
Welcome to the Astraverse! A second chance to witness the power of love and light, and their fight against darkness. The digital premiere of this year’s biggest hit so far – Brahmāstra Part One: Shiva is all set to happen on Disney+ Hotstar.
Viewers can relive the grand experience of the fantasy adventure at home in their preferred language from Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam November 4 onwards. The magnum opus is produced by Star Studios & Dharma Productions, and directed and written by Ayan Mukerji.
Talking about the preparations for the character and film, Ranbir Kapoor said, “Shiva was a very complex character on paper. And we had to do a lot of prep to bring him to life. The way he walks, runs, fights, dances – almost every aspect of his physicality that involved movement – had to be designed.
“His relationship with fire needed to be graphed – both emotionally and physically. I trained a lot and did many workshops with Ayan and a few specialists, including Ido Portal, who helped me with that graphing. And it finally translated into the character and journey you see on screen.”
The film, which is a visual spectacle, features some of the finest actors across the Indian Film Industry such as Amitabh Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Mouni Roy and Nagarjuna Akkineni, among others.
Read all the Latest Movies News here
Welcome to the Astraverse! A second chance
Florence Pugh is opening up about her early days as she was an emerging actor in Hollywood. The Don’t Worry Darling star said that after landing a television pilot as a popstar, her bosses wanted to make changes to her apparance.
“All the things that they were trying to change about me – whether it was my weight, my look, the shape of my face, the shape of my eyebrows – that was so not what I wanted to do, or the industry I wanted to work in,” Pugh said in an interview with The Telegraph. “I’d thought the film business would be like [my experience of making] The Falling, but actually, this was what the top of the game looked like, and I felt I’d made a massive mistake.”
The pilot was not picked up and she felt that her career was over but when she returned to England, she landed an audition for Lady Macbeth which made her “fall back in love with cinema.”
“The kind of cinema that was a space where you could be opinionated, and loud, and I’ve stuck by that,” she added. “I think it’s far too easy for people in this industry to push you left and right. And I was lucky enough to discover when I was 19 what kind of a performer I wanted to be,” she said.”
Florence Pugh is opening up about her
Anderson married Lee on a beach in Mexico in 1995 after just four days of dating. Not long after the whirlwind romance, an hour-long sex tape was stolen and distributed by an employee without the couple’s consent. The pair divorced in February 1998 and Lee was later sentenced to six months in jail for violence against his ex-wife, according to the Los Angeles Times. The judge also ordered the drummer to pay a total of $6,200 to a battered women’s shelter, a victim restitution program, and a domestic violence fund.
Pamela Anderson has not commented on the Hulu series publically, but a source told Entertainment Tonight that it has been a “very painful” experience for her. In March, Anderson announced that she will “tell the real story” in a new Netflix documentary.
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“My life. A thousand imperfections. A million misperceptions,” she wrote in a note on Instagram. “Wicked, wild and lost. Nothing to live up to. I can only surprise you — Not a victim, but a survivor & Alive to tell the real story.”
Anderson married Lee on a beach in
The Witcher has been renewed for Season 4 at Netflix, but its leading man will not return.
Henry Cavill will exit the series at the end of The Witcher Season 3, paving the way for Liam Hemsworth to take over the iconic role.
“My journey as Geralt of Rivia has been filled with both monsters and adventures, and alas, I will be laying down my medallion and my swords for Season 4,” Cavill said in a statement.
“In my stead, the fantastic Mr. Liam Hemsworth will be taking up the mantle of the White Wolf.”
“As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam’s take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men,” Cavill continued.
“Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving in and seeing what you can find.”
“As a Witcher fan I’m over the moon about the opportunity to play Geralt of Rivia,” Hemsworth shared.
“Henry Cavill has been an incredible Geralt, and I’m honoured that he’s handing me the reins and allowing me to take up the White Wolf’s blades for the next chapter of his adventure.”
“Henry, I’ve been a fan of yours for years and was inspired by what you brought to this beloved character. I may have some big boots to fill, but I’m truly excited to be stepping into The Witcher world.”
The news is undoubtedly a shocker, but it will be fun to see how the series navigates a new face for its most important character.
The Witcher Season 3 is in post-production ahead of a planned summer 2023 bow on the streaming service.
To tide fans over until then, a limited series set before the events of the first season, is on the horizon.
The Witcher Blood Origin premieres on December 25.
“As monarchs, mages, and beasts of the Continent compete to capture her, Geralt takes Ciri of Cintra into hiding, determined to protect his newly-reunited family against those who threaten to destroy it,” according to the official Season 3 logline.
Entrusted with Ciri’s magical training, Yennefer leads them to the protected fortress of Aretuza, where she hopes to discover more about the girl’s untapped powers; instead, they discover they’ve landed in a battlefield of political corruption, dark magic, and treachery.”
“They must fight back, put everything on the line — or risk losing each other forever.”
Cavill recently revealed his return to the DC universe in the role of Clark Kent, aka Superman.
What are your thoughts on the big news?
Hit the comments below.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
The Witcher has been renewed for Season
Tom Hanks reprised one of his most iconic characters on this week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live”: David Pumpkins.
The two-time Oscar-winning performer first played Pumpkins – an enigmatic, “spooky” character wearing a jacket covered in pumpkins – when he hosted a 2016 episode of “SNL.”
The sketch was an instant hit (the YouTube video has over 23 million views and NBC ordered a half-hour David S. Pumpkins Halloween special the following year) and spawned a flurry of David Pumpkins costumes that Halloween – made all the easier by the fact that the David Pumpkins costume was actually just a suit you could buy at Halloween City.
Hanks appeared earlier in Saturday’s episode of “SNL” in a sketch about a person at an Alcoholics Anonymous group pitching a Pixar movie, and the surprise cameo by former “SNL” cast member Bobby Moynihan during Weekend Update as his beloved character Drunk Uncle all but confirmed we’d be getting a David Pumpkins sketch later in the night.
That came with another Haunted Elevator sketch, with Hanks’ David Pumpkins once again flanked by Mikey Day and Moynihan as his kooky skeletons. The sketch played out much like the original, with guests riding a “haunted elevator” continually perplexed as to Pumpkins’ whole deal.
We did learn one new piece of information about David Pumpkins during this reprisal: he’s from Ibiza.
Watch the new David Pumpkins sketch in the video above.
Tom Hanks reprised one of his most
An experienced Czech cop proved to be the right man for the job when European justice officials began probing the war crimes that grew out of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 90s.
But Viktor Portel’s film “The Investigator,” screening in the main competition at the Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival, reveals Vladimír Dzuro to be a great deal more than a tenacious detective.
Certainly he does methodically gather evidence and he shows no hesitation about stepping into wartime hot zones to gather testimony or even to exhume bodies, as his team did near the Croatian border town of Vukovar in 1996.
But during 14 days of filming on the exact sites where mass murders were carried out Dzuro proved himself to be invaluable not just as an onscreen storyteller, but as a professional with perspectives still relevant today, says Portel.
Returning to the scene of the crimes was “kind of a big trauma” for his subjects, says Portel, “but on the other hand they feel they have to talk about it. We told them we didn’t want to talk to them only about the trauma but that we’re also interested in their current situation, their feelings about the Hague court, and so on.”
Dzuro’s book about his experiences tracking down those responsible for atrocities, “The Investigator: Demons of the Balkan War,” inspired Portel to begin putting together “The Investigator” four years ago, he says.
The Czech filmmaker and researcher was working at pubcaster Czech TV on historical shows when he first came across Dzuro’s story, he recalls.
In 1992 Dzuro was working for Interpol’s Prague bureau when he learned that UNPROFOR, the United Nations peacekeeping force in the Yugoslav war, was recruiting civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. “I realized I had an obligation as a criminal investigator,” Dzuro says in the film, after seeing snipers hunting women and children.
He wanted to be part of new mechanism for international justice, working to help build solid legal cases for prosecuting those responsible at the then-newly formed International Criminal Court in The Hague. Dzuro and many others, Portel says, believed that shining a light on the atrocities would help change things and make such tragedies a thing of the past.
The reality of long, drawn out cases in which the chief suspects sometimes died before they could be fully tried and sentenced was quite a different result, the director says. “A lot of people were really sad and angry about the court – and not only in Serbia,” as Portel puts it.
It didn’t take a massive effort to convince Dzuro to appear in a film version of his book, Portel says. The cause of getting the truth out is one Dzuro remains dedicated to today, where he’s currently based, in New York as a high-ranking United Nations official.
But it’s likely Portel’s subject didn’t quite grasp the extent of the recreations of war crimes the director was planning or the emotional strain of revisiting the crime sites after so much time – and sometimes tracking down eyewitnesses no one has heard from for decades.
One crucial figure in the doc is the former head of the Vukovar hospital where 350 people including dozens of wounded, women and children, were sheltering in the basement as the building was hit by aerial bombardment. She appealed to Red Cross for help for months, then was finally promised safe passage out of the Croatian-Serbian border town city.
But soldiers under Slavko Dokmanović stopped the Red Cross from getting through, as Portel’s doc recounts, and instead unmarked busses arrived at the hospital to carry patients and staff to a location they would not disclose.
It soon turned out to be a killing field not far outside the city, where at least 40 children were massacred.
“The Investigator” takes viewers on dark journeys retracing these events and also covers the crimes and the capture of mass killings organizer Željko Arkan, in which Dzuro played a key role.
Although the doc had a micro budget, Portel says, the rich, cinematic imagery shot by cinematographer Šimon Dvořáček adds power and depth to the story, especially when intercut with archival news footage of the same locations.
“I knew the basic framework would be real people going back to the real places connected to the cases,” says Portel. “I also knew I wanted to have the time there to make the film look cinematic. And Dvořáček did it in an incredibly small amount of time.”
The shadows of events from that time, laid out in forensic detail in the Czech-Croation doc, the first feature-length nonfiction film by Portel, are long indeed.
But, the director says, returning to the killing fields decades later has offered everyone a better perspective on events. One insight was the vast extent of the violence and killings, he says. “The Investigator” cases, as horrific as they were, “are only a tiny drop in this sea of terror.”
An experienced Czech cop proved to be
The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group, which often targets the capital and controls large parts of the country, claimed responsibility, saying it targeted the education ministry. It claimed the ministry was an “enemy base” that receives support from non-Muslim countries and “is committed to removing Somali children from the Islamic faith.”
Al-Shabab usually doesn’t make claims of responsibility when large numbers of civilians are killed, as in the 2017 blast, but it has been angered by a high-profile new offensive by the government that also aims to shut down its financial network. The group said it is committed to fighting until the country is ruled by Islamic law, and it asked civilians to stay away from government areas.
Somalia’s president, elected this year, said the country remained at war with al-Shabab “and we are winning.”
The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when the president, prime minister and other senior officials were meeting to discuss expanded efforts to combat violent extremism and especially al-Shabab. The extremists, who seek an Islamic state, have responded to the offensive by killing prominent clan leaders in an apparent effort to dissuade grassroots support.
The attack has overwhelmed first responders in Somalia, which has one of the world’s weakest health systems after decades of conflict. At hospitals and elsewhere, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones.
Halima Duwane was searching for her uncle, Abdullahi Jama. “We don’t know whether he is dead or alive but the last time we communicated he was around here,” she said, crying.
Witnesses to the attack were stunned. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of) fatalities,” witness Abdirazak Hassan said. He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the second blast occurred in front of a busy restaurant during lunchtime. The blasts demolished tuk-tuks and other vehicles in an area of many restaurants and hotels.
The Somali Journalists Syndicate, citing colleagues and police, said one journalist was killed and two others wounded by the second blast while rushing to the scene of the first. The Aamin ambulance service said the second blast destroyed one of its responding vehicles.
It was not immediately clear how vehicles loaded with explosives again made it to the high-profile location in Mogadishu, a city thick with checkpoints and constantly on alert for attacks.
The United States has described al-Shabab as one of al-Qaida’s deadliest organizations and targeted it with scores of airstrikes in recent years. Hundreds of U.S. military personnel have returned to the country after former President Donald Trump withdrew them.
Comment on this storyCommentMOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s
Although Evan Peters and Ryan Murphy have worked together for years, Peters was “terrified” to take on Netflix’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
“I really went back and forth on whether I should do it or not. I knew it was going to be incredibly dark and an incredible challenge,” Peters said during a panel Saturday with Murphy and co-stars Niecy Nash and Richard Jenkins. When he was sent the scripts, he watched Dahmer’s 1994 interview on “Dateline” in order to “dive into the psychology of that extreme side of human behavior.”
During the four months of prep and six months of shooting, Murphy noted that Peters wore lead weights around his arms and lifts in his shoes to get Dahmer’s physicality down and “basically stayed in this character, as difficult as it was, for months.”
“He has a very straight back. He doesn’t move his arms when he walks, so I put weights on my arms to see what that felt like. I wore the character shoes with lifts in them, his jeans, his glasses, I had a cigarette in my hand at all times,” Evans explained. “I wanted all this stuff, these external things, to be second nature when we were shooting, so I watched a lot of footage and I also worked with a dialect coach to get down his voice. The way that he spoke, it was very distinct and he had a dialect. So I also went off and created this 45-minute audio composite, which was very helpful. I listened to that every day, in hopes of learning his speech patterns, but really, in an attempt to try to get into his mindset and understand that each day that we were shooting. It was an exhaustive search, trying to find private moments, times where he didn’t seem self conscious, so you could get a glimpse into how he behaved prior to these interviews and being in prison.”
Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer.
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Nash added that she cheerfully approached Peters at the beginning of filming to say hello and realized he was “in his process.”
“I wanted to respect that and I wanted to keep him there,” she said, turning to Peters. “I prayed for you a lot, for real, because this is weighty. And when you stay in it, and you’re tethered to the material, like bone to marrow, your soul is troubled at some point. And I could see him getting tired. I just said, ‘Well, I’m just gonna make sure I keep him in my prayers, because this is a lot and he wants to do it justice.’”
There has been some backlash around the series, with allegations that Murphy didn’t contact the family members and friends of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims — something he shot down Thursday during a DGA event.
“It’s something that we researched for a very long time,” the writer said. “We, over the course of the three-and-a-half years when we were really writing it, working on it, we reached out to around 20 of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people. And not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who… I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night-and-day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people.”
“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is now streaming on Netflix.
Although Evan Peters and Ryan Murphy have
We’re expecting to see the Samsung Galaxy S23 make an appearance around February time, bringing with it a slew of camera upgrades – upgrades that are shown off in what could be the first image captured by the phone that we’ve seen.
This photo comes from well-known tipster Ice Universe on Chinese social media site Weibo (opens in new tab) (via Galaxy Club (opens in new tab) and GSMArena (opens in new tab)). It’s difficult to tell what it’s depicting, but what we do know is that it’s been taken with 16x magnification and then cropped.
The picture taken with a 200MP camera sensor (tipped to appear in the Galaxy S23 Ultra) is compared to a picture taken with a 108MP camera sensor (which we know is fitted to the Galaxy S22 Ultra) – and you can clearly see how much sharper the 200MP version is.
This needs to be taken in the context of some tweets we saw from Ice Universe yesterday, which detailed improvements to low light shots and increased telephoto capabilities supposedly coming with the Galaxy S23 Ultra phone next year.
Add in this image and it seems likely that the tipster has managed to get hold of a prototype unit, or at least is speaking with someone who has. The verdict is that this is “the biggest improvement of Samsung’s flagship mobile phone in five years” – in terms of the camera capabilities, anyway.
We might not get such a promising upgrade on the standard Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus handsets, however. From what we’ve heard so far, the rear cameras on those phones are likely to closely match those on the current models.
Based on this admittedly very limited look at the camera capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, it would seem that it’s going to go above and beyond what the Galaxy S22 Ultra can do – and the current phone is already very impressive when it comes to the images and videos that it can capture.
If indeed the Galaxy S23 Ultra makes the jump to a 200MP main camera sensor, as rumored, then that’s to be welcomed. As we’ve written about before though, the number of megapixels is far from the only factor to consider when weighing up how good a smartphone camera actually is.
The size of those pixels – how much light they can let in – is crucial too, as is the AI processing applied to the captured images and clips (Ice Universe says AI processing was switched off for the image posted on Weibo).
The Google Pixel phones are well-known for excelling at image processing – remember that the Google Pixel 7 ‘only’ has a 50MP main camera sensor, but can still take excellent snaps. In other words, wait until you see real world image and video samples before assessing a particular phone’s camera performance.
We're expecting to see the Samsung Galaxy
Working seven years to get his feature writing and directorial debut Sam & Kate just right, Darren Le Gallo not only has created a touching and engaging family drama but he also as managed to cast a couple of famous acting families to pull it off in style. In addition to that, Le Gallo’s own wife, six-time Oscar nominee Amy Adams, adds to the familial aspect of the film by serving as one of a small village of executive producers involved in bringing it all to the screen.
Having its world premiere tonight at the Austin Film Festival before opening exclusively in theaters (yay) in two weeks, Sam & Kate is almost a throwback to the kind of modest but authentic family drama that studios regularly churned out at one time in a galaxy far far away, but now almost never bite on. Fortunately, when you have certified cinematic legends like Dustin Hoffman and Sissy Spacek signing on in significant roles, what independent distributor would want to resist? Fortunately, Vertical Entertainment didn’t, and in return has a compelling and richly rewarding movie on its hands that should, if there is any justice, bring in that hard-to-get older adult audience to the multiplex (though this will also play very well at home when it hits VOD and streaming services).
The bonus here is seeing both of its stars’ accomplished offspring believably taking on the title roles and hitting it out of the park on their own merits. Although on the surface this might sound like gimmick casting, it turns out to be anything but that, with stirring turns by both Dustin’s son Jake Hoffman (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Irishman) and Spacek’s daughter Schuyler Fisk (Orange County). They drive the story of two older kids now dealing with the sometimes heartbreaking task of helping an elderly parent, while trying to put their own lives back together against all odds.
Sam (Jake Hoffman) has come back to the small town in which he grew up to move in with and watch over his elderly widowed Dad, Bill (Dustin Hoffman), a somewhat cantankerous and demanding man now lost at sea without his beloved wife. Sam works at a local chocolate factory, and continues his childhood obsession and talent of sketching people and places, a sign of unrealized potential as an artist. When he spots Kate (Fisk), the beautiful owner of a rare-books store, he becomes instantly smitten and asks her out, more than once, but with little luck until he basically wears her down to buy a cup of coffee. Her co-worker Beth (a fine Elizabeth Faith Ludlow) can’t understand why she keeps turning him away, but as we discover with all four of these main characters, there are events in their past keeping their guard up.
In a perhaps too convenient plot device, father and son Bill and Sam are brought to the rescue after Kate and mom Tina’s (Sissy Spacek) car ignition goes dead in the church parking lot after services all attended. This leads to a dinner invite and some unexpected sparks between Bill and Tina, even a tentative dance that doesn’t end well when Bill collapses after a few too many drinks. Meanwhile, come New Year’s Eve Sam convinces Kate to join him on a friends outing to the roller rink. Her resistance to his awkward pursuit starts cracking at the same time Bill works up the nerve to ask Tina to a restaurant date.
At this point the traumas of their past start colliding with the present, and the tone turns a bit dark with revelations that explain much — maybe too much. Fortunately, Le Gallo is blessed with this cast that knows how to play melodramatic situations with subtlety, even as it appears the emotional overload of it all could overwhelm the simple human story of one generation looking after another — and vice versa. Le Gallo knows it is that very human touch that is most important here, particularly in a touching sequence where Sam makes a huge mistake and accidentally misplaces a key memento of Kate’s.
This is the kind of film that it is best to just let unfold in front of you without too much information. It earns its tears (and a few laughs) honestly, and tells a story of family ties in an America that seems out of the past, but one that it is greatly missed.
Hoffman and Spacek are wonderful together, two pros still at the top of their game. The younger Hoffman, who looks remarkably like his father in his earlier years, sweetly plays Sam as an infectious but good-natured man wearing his heart and self-doubt on his sleeve. Fisk is just terrific here, and like her real-life mom seems incapable of a false note. She also is a talented musician, which becomes a key part of Kate’s own past, paying it off with a lovely rendition of an original song, “Life After,” that she also wrote. Among the supporting cast, Henry Thomas (yes, Elliot from E.T.) is fun as a guitar-strumming co-worker of Sam’s, and Elizabeth Becka makes the most of a few scenes as a church friend of Tina’s.
Vertical releases Sam & Kate in theaters on November 11. Check out my video review above with scenes from the film.
Working seven years to get his feature
Luke Bryan brought out Governor Ron DeSantis as a special guest during one of his concerts this week … and it doesn’t look like the internet is very happy about it.
The country singer was performing Friday in Jacksonville, FL, and at one point in the show … he brought out RDS to join him onstage, this after announcing they were gonna be raising money that night for relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
DeSantis just walked out on stage at Luke Bryan. It’s deafening in here. pic.twitter.com/WHelgPCxM1
— Bonnie Upright, APR (@bonnieupright) October 29, 2022
@bonnieupright
The Gov. comes out to some pretty strong applause and begins throwing hats into the crowd … and, eventually, Luke embraces him when they finally come face to face.
One Twitter user — who seems to have shot this video — wrote … “DeSantis just walked out on stage at Luke Bryan. It’s deafening in here.” Her clip has now gone viral with retweets and quote tweets, with A LOT of people expressing their disapproval over DeSantis’ cameo.
Thanks for letting me crash the party last night, @lukebryan! pic.twitter.com/GCuTELFOM9
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantisFL) October 29, 2022
@RonDeSantisFL
The reactions speak for themselves … folks are saying that LB is “off the playlist” now because of his perceived politics — when, in reality, all he did was say he wanted to contribute to fundraising efforts in the state to help people still struggling to recover.
The fact he yukked it up with DeSantis, though, seems to be shocking some Twitter users. Luke’s considered a pretty likeable, mainstream celeb (he’s a current judge on ‘American Idol’) — and the notion of him welcoming DeSantis with open arms is apparently … jarring.
Luke, for his part, hasn’t said he supports DeSantis’ policies one way or another … again, all he did was say he was going to fundraise on behalf of Florida. A line crossed, we suppose?
In the opening scene of Stephanie Rothman’s 1971 film “The Velvet Vampire,” a damsel in distress is jumped outside an art gallery by a man in a motorcycle jacket.
It’s dark and she’s alone. Diane LeFanu (Celeste Yarnall) appears entirely helpless, until she calmly dispatches the would-be rapist with a switchblade. She then washes the blood off her hands in a nearby fountain; this lady in red can take care of herself. Cut to a blues musician singing a tragic, heartfelt lament entitled “Evil-Hearted Woman.”
Evil, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and Rothman’s exploitation-cinema classic — which screens Saturday at the TIFF Bell Lightbox — is a movie styled lavishly as a Rorschach test. Whether you see Yarnall’s bloodsucker as a villainess or a victim, or an anti-heroine peddling sexual liberation, is a matter of perspective, and the same ambiguity applies to the film as a whole.
Is “The Velvet Vampire” a dreamy, hypnotic homage to Gothic mythology or an academic deconstruction of its clichés? Is it a shameless soft-core romp featuring gratuitous nudity or a multi-faceted study of desire? Is it art or is it trash?
“My view was that it was not a clash but, rather, that it was interesting to see those things combined,” said Rothman, now 85, by telephone from Los Angeles. “How fascinating! Why did these things all have to be in separate categories or separate boxes? Why can’t they blend into something new?”
Rothman, who will do a virtual Q&A after TIFF’s screening, is articulate about the nature of her artistry, and unsentimentally perceptive about the premature curtailment of her career. The same self-awareness that once made her an outlier in a crass field remains; if she has a directorial legacy, it’s as an artist who was, both to her credit and to her detriment, ahead of the curve.
When she directed “The Velvet Vampire,” she was 35 years old, the first woman to ever be awarded the Directors Guild of America’s fellowship. As a film student at the University of Southern California, she’d been inspired by the art films of Ingmar Bergman and Jean Cocteau (whose dreamlike theatricality is visible in “The Velvet Vampire”); after graduation, she was singled out by the legendary B-movie impresario Roger Corman, who hired her as his assistant and gave her myriad production responsibilities on a series of low-budget efforts.
In 1970, Corman backed Rothman’s breakthrough feature “The Student Nurses” (1970), about the romantic and professional adventures of four young women studying to become caregivers. Well-cast and shrewdly directed, “The Student Nurses” earned strong box office while savvily splitting the difference between sleaze and sociology, incorporating a boldly matter-of-fact abortion subplot that shamed the mainstream competition.
The film’s delicate balancing act between pandering and confrontation carried over into “The Velvet Vampire,” which was commissioned to cash in on the early ’70s vogue for vampire films kick-started in the U.K. by Hammer studios.
“Exploitation films were the area in which I could work,” said Rothman, who bristled against being pigeonholed but also saw the writing on the wall. “What I tried to do was make the films my own, which is to say, not as copies of what was thought as normal within the genre, but rather to refresh it and make something new.”
To prepare for “The Velvet Vampire,” Rothman and her co-writer, Charles S. Swartz (who also happened to be her husband), immersed themselves in vampire lore. “I knew that they could be terrifying creatures,” Rothman said, “but in terms of movies, there was always an underlying eroticism. The vampire has female victims, who usually swooned, and it was like ecstasy when it happened. I decided that to refresh the genre, I would make the vampire a woman and she would be a seductive woman, and that would be part of her power.”
Diane LeFanu, whose surname references Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, a forerunner of Bram Stoker whose 1872 novella “Carmilla” featured a distaff bloodsucker, is a marvellous creation. Decadently cadaverous in her crimson ensembles, she cuts a striking figure, never more so than in a beautiful shot of her splayed over her late husband’s coffin. Her master plan to lure a pretty young couple to her secluded desert estate marks her as a kind of supernatural swinger, but despite her psychic and physical predations toward her freeloading house guests — both of whom seem happy to be in her thrall and in her bed — Diane is also a tragic outsider.
The final scenes, which pit our velvety anti-heroine against an angry mob clutching crosses, feel not so subtly politicized as allegory for misogyny, or homophobia or xenophobia; in the end, she’s like a scapegoat for the primal desires she stirs up in the people around her.
It’s possible to see the character’s persecution as an act of artistic self-portraiture for the filmmaker. Despite Corman’s support, Rothman was fighting an uphill battle, not only against the institutional sexism of the filmmaking industry but against the snobbishness of critics. At a moment when the concept of auteurism was making young male directors into household names, Roth’s intelligence and intentionality didn’t win her many defenders. Critics were hesitant to recognize her personal stylistic signature in works like “Velvet Vampire.”
“The reviewer for the Los Angeles Times said that the film was unintentionally funny. I just threw my hands up, like ‘What can I say?’ He came in with a point of view and the film didn’t satisfy that point of view. So he said it was unintentionally funny, but as far as the visual aspects of the film — which he thought were in many cases very lovely — he attributed them all to the cameraman,” Rothman said.
The same beguiling, seriocomic tone that makes “The Velvet Vampire” so singular made it difficult to market and, after directing a few more features — including 1973’s two-fisted thriller “Terminal Island,” about an offshore island housing violent, exiled criminals — Rothman gradually receded from the business.
“People coming from many different directions, and with different values, all ask me the same thing: ‘Why didn’t you go on making films?’ I stopped because I couldn’t get work. I didn’t want to go on making more exploitation films; I wanted to make things that were different and there was no interest in that. In some cases, they just didn’t want a woman director and, in other cases, the people I wanted to see and make my case to didn’t want to meet me.”
Rothman says that the first time she was aware of any late-breaking admiration for her work was the 1979 Toronto Festival of Festivals, forerunner of TIFF, where “The Velvet Vampire” was programmed by the late Robin Wood as part of a horror section called “The American Nightmare.”
In the 21st century, though, her films have undergone a wider critical appraisal. There’s a new book by writer and scholar Alicia Kozma, called “The Cinema of Stephanie Roth: Radical Acts of Filmmaking”; there are streaming engagements on the Criterion Channel and screenings at cinematheques around the world.
“My films are in the archive at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) now and, in July, they screened ‘The Velvet Vampire’ on a beautiful new print that had been restored. They said it was the second largest audience they’d had this year, which was very nice to hear. It was quite a turn, this wonderful reception given me by the audience and by the museum. I’m happy that when I’m gone, my films will have a home.”
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In the opening scene of Stephanie Rothman’s
It’s time to put “values into action” in the documentary field, argued professor Patricia Aufderheide at Ji.hlava Film Festival.
Addressing ethical issues that doc filmmakers identify in their work, Aufderheide – who joined the conference online – offered concrete solutions, referencing DAWG’s [Documentary Accountability Working Group] framework “From Reflection to Release.”
“Integrate anti-oppression practices in your work. Be transparent in your relationships. Acknowledge your positionality. Respect the dignity and agency of the people in your film. Prioritize the needs, wellbeing and experience of the people associated with the film, treat potential audience members with dignity, care and concern.”
Aufderheide also discussed the possibility of “defraying necessary expenses,” with the participants offered location fees, if filming takes place in their homes, paid for post-release work or simply offered compensation for a day’s work lost.
“If your participant is a young Black kid who wants to play basketball, like in [Steve James’] ‘Hoop Dreams,’ you might think about defraying their costs,” she said. In the end, they received almost $200,000 in royalties from the film.
Still, such a solution won’t make ethical sense every single time. “If you are making a film about Elon Musk, Elon Musk does not need to be compensated.”
As pointed out by Aufderheide, practices associated with journalism don’t have to apply to documentary films. Sometimes, showing the film to the participants in advance or even offering producer credits for shaping the narrative can be the right choice.
“[Not doing it] might work when you are investigating a corrupt public official. It doesn’t work as well when you work with a traumatized individual, or a whistleblower, or someone who has experienced sexual assault.”
Not re-traumatizing the participants, as well as getting informed consent from everyone involved, is crucial – something the teams behind “Jihad Rehab” [now “The UnRedacted”] and “Sabaya” have reportedly struggled with, said Aufderheide.
But she also mentioned positive examples, starting with “Always in Season,” about a mother’s quest for justice after her son’s lynching. Its director, Jacqueline Olive, tried to preserve her protagonist’s safety by filming in another town, not her home.
In “Overnighters,” helmer Jesse Moss was ready not to include damning information after stumbling upon his participant’s secret. “He had a heart-to-heart discussion with the pastor on whether he wanted that material out.”
As noted by Aufderheide, while working filmmakers kept admitting they were encountering ethical problems all the time, people continued to avoid the topic.
Still, the conversation continued, with multiple documentaries generating controversies over the years. From Davis Guggenheim’s “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” accused of favoring charter schools, to “The Act of Killing” or “Roadrunner,” about the late Anthony Bourdain, where director Morgan Neville used artificial intelligence to mimic his voice.
“These are all questions that people have, but they have not yet resulted in change,” she observed.
However, in the last three years in the U.S., significant changes in the industry, including the rise of the streamers, as well as racial reckoning, put the topic front and center.
“All the broadcasters are in a very vulnerable position. The people who they always believed they had in the palm of their hand, documentary filmmakers, suddenly got other options. Suddenly, there are other places to go. They are looking to make more friends and say: ‘You should work with us, not with Netflix,’” she said.
New organizations, such as DAWG, Undocumented Filmmakers Collective or FWD-DOC: Documentary Filmmakers with Disabilities are also keeping up the momentum, while “non-extractive filmmaking” should be seen as priority.
“It’s not enough to say: ‘I am a good person.’ You have to acknowledge that oppression is built into our society. Be transparent, be clear about what you are doing. Go the extra mile to respect the dignity and the agency of the people in your film. They are not your ‘subjects.’”
While such solutions are becoming more common – especially in films about, with or for members of underrepresented, minoritized or oppressed groups – people who apply them still think they are “sneaking around,” she said. Adding that the arrival of “From Reflection to Release” was met with a “big sigh of relief.”
“It all starts with reflection. As a filmmaker, you have to ask yourself: Why am I interested in making this film? What are the relationships I need to have in order to make it? Am I the person who should be making it?”
“We create a series of questions, but we don’t provide answers.”
It’s time to put “values into action”
V/H/S/99 broke records to become the most-watched film debut on AMC Network’s streaming service Shudder.
The fifth installment of the V/H/S horror franchise debuted to record numbers in its opening weekend. In its first four days of release, the found footage film had 28% more unique viewers than its predecessor, V/H/S/94, which premiered on Shudder in 2021. V/H/S/99 accounted for 22% of all on-demand streams on the service during the same time period and it was AMC+’s most streamed movie of the weekend.
By every metric V/H/S/99 has been a wild success, with subscribers watching in record numbers and debating with each other on social media about which segment of the anthology was their favorite.
“We are thrilled that the revival of the series continues to be embraced by our audience, and already looking forward to next year’s V/H/S/85,” said Craig Engler, GM of Shudder in a statement.
V/H/S/99 features five stories from directors Maggie Levin (Into the Dark: My Valentine), Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down), Flying Lotus (Kuso), Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls) and Joseph and Vanessa Winter (Deadstream), and follows when home videos lead to a series of terrifying revelations.
The sixth installment, V/H/S/85, set to premiere in 2023, will include stories from filmmakers David Bruckner (Hulu’s Hellraiser), Scott Derrickson (Sinister), Gigi Saul Guerrero (Bingo Hell), Natasha Kermani (Lucky) and Mike P. Nelson (Wrong Turn).
V/H/S/99 broke records to become the most-watched
What better way to celebrate Taylor Swift than to watch the film that might have inspired her new album? Megamind tells the story of the title character (voiced by Will Ferrell), a blue-skinned, bald, and goateed super-villain who has been in an on-going feud with Metro Man, a cleft-chinned, handsome superhero (voiced by Brad Pitt). When Metro Man dies during one of their fights for Metro City, Megamind finds that he has no purpose and sets out to create a new hero to fight, all while beginning a secret relationship with news reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) who does not know his real identity. If you’re still trying to figure out what your costume should be for Halloween, any character in this film will work. Plus, Megamind is due for rewatch anyway, as Peacock is currently developing a television series based on the character.
Source: Everett Collection
By Mara Kleinberg What better way to celebrate Taylor
Jamie Lee Curtis, the veteran actress who was born to two Hollywood movie stars — Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis — and then very much made her own name in the business, has been tapped to receive the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s highest honor, the Maltin Modern Master Award.
The 63-year-old, who won rave reviews for her performance in this year’s breakout hit Everything Everywhere All at Once, and who also starred in the recent blockbuster Halloween Ends, will be feted on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023, at Santa Barbara’s historic Arlington Theatre following a career-retrospective interview conducted by her award’s namesake, film critic and historian Leonard Maltin.
“Jamie Lee Curtis has long proven that she has staying power,” Maltin said in a statement which noted that Curtis’ other memorable credits include earlier installments of the Halloween series, dating back to 1978, as well as Trading Places (1983), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), True Lies (1994), Freaky Friday (2003) and Knives Out (2019). “People want to watch her, whether it’s in a Halloween movie or an offbeat character role. She’s talented and charismatic, and in the process does her movie-star parents proud.”
The fest’s Modern Master Award was established in 1995 and was re-named the Maltin Modern Master Award in 2015. Past recipients include Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, Bill Murray, Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Bruce Dern, Ben Affleck, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith, George Clooney and Peter Jackson.
The 38th edition of SBIFF will run Feb. 8-18, 2023.
Jamie Lee Curtis, the veteran actress who
Pop superstar Mariah Carey is delivering Christmas goodies again; this year, it is the gift of two live, in-concert shows. They are sure to be filled with the holiday spirit and whimsy.
In a Twitter post, Carey announced the dates of her Christmas Revue, with the title “Merry Christmas To You.” In the post, the multi-Grammy winner shares her excitement about “being back on stage and getting festive with everyone.”
Presented by LiveNation, the Revue begins its celebration on December 11th, 2022, at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada. Then it is off to Times Square in New York at Madison Square Garden on December 13th. Mariah will perform a package of her Christmas classics, including her 1994 chart-topper, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” The song only increased in popularity since its release nearly thirty years ago, with the continuation hitting number one on the Billboard Charts in the last three years.
Tickets will go on sale through Ticketmaster through LiveNation.com beginning Friday, October 28th, and fans will have the choice of whether to purchase a limited-edition t-shirt and a hard copy of her illustrated children’s book, “The Christmas Princess,” scheduled to launch in bookstores and online November 1st.
Mariah’s other holiday projects include concerts for Apple TV, an animated special, cookies, and holiday cakes with various flavors, which was an exclusive for the Milk Bar bakery in New York.
Mariah got inducted into the Song Writers Hall of Fame for her songwriting talents in June 2021, along with fellow inductees The Isley Brothers, The Neptunes, and a few others.
As for claiming to be the “Queen of Christmas,” as fans associate the title with Mariah, she dismisses it. Although she loves and enjoys the holiday season, she feels like the real Queen of Christmas is one who is definitely worth the status.
“I’m someone that loves Christmas, that happened to be blessed to write ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You.’ And a lot of other Christmas songs. And let’s face it, everybody’s faith is what it is. But to me, the Virgin Mary is the Queen of Christmas.”
Are you excited about Mariah Carey’s Christmas Revue? Be sure to let us know in the comments.
Pop superstar Mariah Carey is delivering
“Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues” explores the legendary trumpet player and singer in all his complexity. Filmmaker Sacha Jenkins draws upon Armstrong’s private audio diaries and interviews to tell his own story.
"Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues" explores the
Chinese veterinary experts have been invited to Taiwan, zoo officials said Friday, for a rare visit between the two sides after a male panda that symbolised an era of warmer ties was moved into end of life care.
Relations between China and Taiwan have been on ice since 2016 with Beijing severing official communications and government visits between the two sides scrapped.
But Taiwan has made an exception after Tuan Tuan, a male panda that was gifted to the island by Beijing in 2008, fell ill in recent weeks and looks to be entering his twilight days.
A worker feeds the sick panda Tuan Tuan at the zoo in Taipei as he undergoes end of life care.
Zoo workers said their ‘hearts are breaking’ to see the beloved panda on the brink of death
Tuan Tuan (pictured) has been moved to end of life care at Taipei Zoo in Taiwan
Taipei Zoo said the Chinese vets will stay for seven days and observe, rather than conduct, health checks.
‘The main purpose is to visit Tuan Tuan and see his present condition,’ Eve Wang, Animal Section Chief of Taipei City Zoo told reporters.
‘They expressed their desire to come in person to visit Tuan Tuan. I also think it will be a very meaningful trip,’ she added.
It is not clear when the vets will arrive but Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said Wednesday they were processing their visa applications.
Tuan Tuan (pictured) was gifted to Beijing in 2008, fell ill in recent weeks and looks to be entering his twilight days
Tuan Tuan and his breeding mate Yuan Yuan were given to Taiwan by Beijing at a time when relations between the two neighbours were more cordial.
In a nod to the Chinese Communist Party’s goal of one day taking Taiwan, their names combined mean ‘reunion’ or ‘unity’.
The couple became huge stars in Taiwan and Yuan Yuan has since given birth to two female cubs.
‘He (Tuan Tuan) was small and so cute when he first got here,’ said Heng Ling-lin, who brought her children to Taipei Zoo to sign get-well notes.
‘He was like everybody’s baby,’ she told AFP.
‘It breaks my heart now to see him like this.’
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, the two giant pandas given by China to Taiwan, at the Zoo’s Panda House in Taipei, Taiwan
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan’s panda cub (pictured) at Taipei Zoo was born in July 2013
China only loans pandas to foreign zoos which must usually return any offspring within a few years of their birth to join the country’s breeding programme.
But Taiwan was granted an exception as part of a brief charm offensive China launched in the late 2000s and was fully gifted both Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan and any offspring they had.
Vets first noticed Tuan Tuan, 18, was ill in August when he began suffering seizures and appeared increasingly unsteady and lethargic.
Subsequent scans showed he had a brain-lesion and he was placed on anti-seizure medication.
A cameraman films messages left by people for the sick Tuan Tuan at the Taipei Zoo
Earlier this week Taipei Zoo said they suspected Tuan Tuan had a brain tumour and he was moved into palliative care.
Beijing has long deployed ‘panda diplomacy’ and the gift of Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan was a move seen to endorse the presidency of then Beijing-friendly leader Ma Ying-jeou.
China views Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to one day bring the self-ruled democratic island back into the fold, by force if necessary.
Relations took a dive in 2016 when President Tsai Ing-wen was elected.
Beijing loathes Tsai because she views Taiwan as an already sovereign nation and not part of ‘one China’.
Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has since ramped up economic, military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan.
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Filmmaker, screenwriter and author Quentin Tarantino stopped by Real Time Friday night to talk with Bill Maher about his new book, Cinema Speculation, out on Tuesday.
Tarantino went to a lot of sophisticated films as a young child, he admitted, sometimes viewing subject matter that he didn’t quite understand, like a certain infamous Ned Beatty rape scene in Delilverance.
Of that scene, Tarantino said, “I’m seeing it in ’73, so I’m about nine,” he said. Admitting he didn’t know about sodomy, Tarantino did know Beatty was being subjugated, because everybody on the school yard has been subjugated to some degree.
“I’m not sure what the lesson is here,” Maher joked.
Tarantino found his way back to his point about young viewers of sophisticated films. “There will be some stuff that goes over their head,” he said. But, like him, “I got the gist of it.”
That was true when he went to see the Jim Brown and Raquel Welch film 100 Rifles. He was taken to a theater with an all-Black audience, Tarantino reminisced, by his mother’s boyfriend. The crowd was raucous for the opening film, The Bus is Coming, yelling at the screen. “The first time I ever heard ‘suck my dick’ was someone in the audience,” Tarantino said. Taken with the raw energy and fun of the moment, Tarantino himself eventually squeaked out a similar epithet.
Maher reminded him, “If you’re promoting the book on the ‘Today’ show, don’t tell these stories.”
But 100 Rifles stimulated something in young Tarantino. “Being taken to a Jim Brown movie at an all-Black theater, that was the most masculine experience I have ever had.”
That moment shaped him. “Either as a movie consumer, or when creating movies for an audience – that goal of a Jim Brown movie on a Saturday night in1972 is what I’m trying to recreate.”
In the panel discussion, Maher was joined by Gillian Tett, the US editor-at-large of the Financial Times and author of Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life, and Yuval Noah Harari, author of the book Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World,
The discussion was a civil chat with a lot of tut-tutting about how people and politics are being warped and woofed by social media and technology.
“Something is broken in the information system,” said Harari. “People can no longer hold a conversation and agree on the most basic facts.”
Tett argued that such a state is the product of being able to program their own world, whether through music or social media.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will not necessarily help that, Tett said. She said Musk “is increasingly godlike and capricious.”
Harari was also skeptical. “(Musk’s) view is that it’s the town square. It’s not. Twitter is more like a gladiatorial arena.”
Finally, in his “New Rules” editorial, Maher blasted the scolds at BuzzFeed and other publications who constantly whine about “forbidden” Halloween costumes.
“If Halloween is too much for your fragile sensibilities and you’re worried about seeing something on the forbidden costume list, just stay the fuck home,” Maher said, adding, “I’m so tired of a handful of emotional hemophiliacs telling us what we can’t do on Halloween.”
On the forbidden costume list: Queen Elilzabeth (“too soon”), no sexy schoolgirls, no Playboy bunnies, can’t dress up as Elvis, and “don’t even think of characters outside your race.”
Worse, “no unhoused person,” thereby eliminating the “default costume of every kid in history.” No drag queens, either, “because if kids want to go see drag queens, they can go to story hour.”
Also banned: No Putin, no Trump, no Johnny Depp, particularly no Amber Heard (“no shit”) and nothing related to vaccines and monkeypox.
“Listen to me,” Maher said, addressing an imaginary audience of teens. “I’m your last connection to fun.” He encouraged mixing and matching. “Have the Queen shit in Johnny’s bed, have Will Smith smacking a hobo, have Kevin Spacey hitting on a mariachi band. Jeffrey Dahmer is the perfect Halloween costume.
Ironically, it’s Gen Z who are the scolds on this. “Your parents protected you, and now you’re these assholes. Gen Z is the one telling you to get off my lawn.”
Filmmaker, screenwriter and author Quentin Tarantino stopped by
A day after releasing the audio for “Lift Me Up,” her new song from the soundtrack of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” Rihanna has dropped the official music video, and you can watch it above now.
The video is a fairly simple thing — Rihanna just went to a beach somewhere and had a camera crew capture her looking emotional against a sunset and twilight sky. It’s interspersed with footage from “Wakanda Forever,” which will of course be its own kind of emotional, since the context both in the story and in the real world is the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020.
The song is Rihanna’s first solo single since “Lemon” in 2017.
Alongside Rihanna’s music, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” stars Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, Leticia Wright as Shuri, Danai Gurira as Okoye, Florence Kasumba as Ayo, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Angela Bassett as Queen Ramonda and Martin Freeman as Everett Ross, all returning from “Black Panther.” Tenoch Huerta plays Namor, the king of Talokan, joined by Dominique Thorne as future Ironheart RiRi Williams, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livinalli.
Ryan Coogler directed the film, which lands in theaters Nov. 11.
A day after releasing the audio for
Hollywood transformed into Wakanda at the world premiere of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” from Marvel Studios. It was a celebration as the film honored Chadwick Boseman’s legacy, and brought forward an Oscar-worthy performance from Angela Bassett. The film also brings Grammy winner Rihanna to the race for best original song, who dropped her new single “Lift Me Up.”
Kanye West has finally faced the consequences of his antisemitic remarks as he gets dropped by CAA, Adidas and various other companies that are severing ties with the musician, resulting in him losing his billionaire status. What’s next for him?
The SCAD Savannah Film Festival had plenty of buzz with big names descending onto the festival such as Miles Teller (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and Janelle Monáe (“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”). In addition, the directors of some of the season’s top animated films were in attendance for the first “Sketch to Screen” panel which included Kyle Balda (“Minions: The Rise of Gru”), Joel Crawford (“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”), Dean Fleischer-Camp (“Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”), Henry Selick (“Wendell and Wild”), Domee Shi (“Turning Red”) and Masaaki Yuasa (“Inu-oh”).
Finally, the opening statements in Harvey Weinstein’s trial in Los Angeles kicked off with troublesome rhetoric from the defense team calling Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom, a “bimbo.” With the trial continuing for the next two months, how will this affect the release of Universal Pictures’ “She Said,” which tells the story of the two journalists that exposed his decades-long reign of abuse?
Hosted by Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister and senior awards editor Clayton Davis, Variety’s “The Take,” presented by Apple TV+, is a weekly series that navigates the week’s top stories from entertainment, pop culture and media, while providing expert analysis and exclusive insight on what’s buzzing in Hollywood. Filmed in Variety’s state-of-the-art studio in Los Angeles, new episodes are released on Fridays on Variety.com, YouTube and social media.
Make sure to let us know… what’s your take?
Hollywood transformed into Wakanda at the world
Director Mohamed Al Salman’s Raven Song, a coming-of-age comedy about a young man, Nasar, who is dared by his best friend to reach out to a mystery woman by singing a love poem, has been chosen by Saudi Arabia as its contender for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.
Shot in Riyadh, Raven Song stars Asem Alawad, Ibrahim Khairallah and Kateryna Tkachenko and is produced by Ahmed Mousa and Telfaz 11. Al Salman’s film was among the winners of the Saudi Film Commission’s Daw Film Competition to discover and support new Saudi filmmaking talent.
Also, Mongolia’s Harvest Moon, the directorial debut of Mongolian actor Amarsaikhan Baljinnyam, who played Kublai Khan’s brother Ariq Böke in Netflix’s Marco Polo drama, has been picked to represent that country in the Oscar competition for best international movie.
Baljinnyam, who also stars in Harvest Moon, plays a chef in a city who travels back to his village, only to stay to complete a harvest as promised after his father dies. While working in the fields, he meets a 10-year-old boy who lives with his grandparents, and their growing friendship makes each challenge their own lives.
The 95th Academy Awards will be held on March 12, 2023, in Los Angeles.
Director Mohamed Al Salman’s Raven Song, a
Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.
Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.
Film directors walk viewers through one scene
[This article contains spoilers for a recent superhero movie that will remain nameless, because its very presence in the spoiler warning for this article would constitute a spoiler. Alas, the complicated world in which we live!]
Henry Cavill is once again a hot property in Hollywood at the moment, having recently, finally, deigned to return to the role of Superman for Warner Bros. Discovery in the recent Black Adam. (In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, Cavill declined to confirm that we might see Clark Kent anywhere else in the DC Extended Universe any time soon—although, c’mon—but did talk a bit about the high security precautions required to get the cameo filmed: “It was all locked down,” he noted. “No one gets in.”)
But just because Cavill might be doing some more tights work soon—or getting a coin tossed at him as part of the third season of Netflix’s The Witcher show—it doesn’t mean he doesn’t pick up the phone when his old Man From U.N.C.L.E. pal Guy Ritchie calls.
This is per Deadline, which reports that Cavill has just signed on to the cast of Ritchie’s new World War II spy movie The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare. He’ll co-star with Baby Driver’s Eiza González for Ritchie’s latest, which follows the director’s upcoming Operation Fortune, and last year’s Wrath Of Man. The film—a true story tracking the development of the U.K.’s espionage services, featuring appearances from both Winston Churchill and future Bond author Ian Fleming—is being produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
The biggest takeaway here, honestly, is the confirmation that Cavill’s dance card definitely isn’t full at the moment; it’s an open question of whether he’ll be really, seriously taking a stab at returning to the DC movies as an active participant any time soon, but it’s clearly not the next priority on his list.
Guy Ritchie and Henry CavillPhoto: Tristan Fewings
Matthew Perry sat down with Diane Sawyer on Friday to discuss his upcoming memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. In the 250-page book, he reveals just how bad his struggle with addiction was, how many times he’s had to have surgery as a result of it and how his Friends experience was shaped by it.
During the hour-long interview on ABC, Perry elaborated on his drug abuse, how he wants to settle down and have a family, and what people can look for if they want to see if he’s not doing well again.
Teaser clips from Perry’s interview with Sawyer were released in the week leading up to it and have been making the rounds online. Ahead of the memoir hitting shelves, a few things have been revealed: Jennifer Aniston was one of his most supportive Friends co-stars; the real reason he broke up with Julia Roberts; and how viewers can track which drugs he was using throughout the popular NBC sitcom.
Perry also came forward and apologized for asking why Keanu Reeves “still walks among us.” “I’m actually a big fan of Keanu,” he said in a statement. “I just chose a random name, my mistake. I apologize. I should have used my own name instead.”
Here are six more revelations from the interview:
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing will be released on Nov. 1.
Matthew Perry sat down with Diane Sawyer
Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure ‘Black Adam,’ a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures. Copyright: © 2022 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
While they got off to a rocky start, and certainly still have a ways to go to truly compete with the MCU, the DC Extended Universe is still going strong almost a decade later.
Often referred to as the “Snyderverse,” director Zack Snyder created the DCEU in 2013 with ‘Man of Steel,’ and although he has left the series, many of the actors he cast have gone on to continue playing their characters in movies like ‘Wonder Woman,’ ‘Aquaman,’ and the upcoming ‘The Flash.’
There have been many changes and “course corrections” since the DCEU began, but with ‘Black Adam’ starring Dwayne Johnson opening in theaters on October 21st, the DCEU seems alive and well, and with the inclusion of this new character, will never be the same again!
In honor of the new movie’s release, Moviefone has decided to rank all 11 DCEU movies, including ‘Black Adam.’ However, since ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League‘ (the reedited version of 2017’s ‘Justice League’) is not considered cannon, we will not include it. We are also only focusing on the DCEU films, so we won’t be including HBO Max‘s ‘Peacemaker‘ either.
Without further ado, let’s begin!
Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s (Henry Cavill) selfless act, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) assemble a team of metahumans consisting of Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) and Victor Stone (Ray Fisher) to face the catastrophic threat of Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) and the Parademons who are on the hunt for three Mother Boxes on Earth.
A secret government agency led by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) recruits some of the most dangerous incarcerated super-villains (including Will Smith as Deadshot and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn) to form a defensive task force. Their first mission: save the world from the apocalypse and kill the Joker (Jared Leto).
Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman in ‘Wonder Woman 1984.’
A botched store robbery places Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) in a global battle against a powerful and mysterious ancient force that puts her powers in jeopardy. Also starring Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva/Cheetah, and Pedro Pascal as Maxwell Lord.
A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.
The movie stars Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Michael Shannon as General Zod.
Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs.
And with Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before. Also featuring Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, and Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth.
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) joins forces with a singer (Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Dinah Lance/Black Canary), an assassin (Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Helena Bertinelli/The Huntress) and a police detective (Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya) to help a young girl (Ella Jay Basco as Cassandra Cain) who had a hit placed on her after she stole a rare diamond from a crime lord (Ewan McGregor as Roman Sionis/Black Mask).
(L to R) Jack Dylan Grazer as Frederick “Freddy” Freeman and Zachary Levi as Shazam in ‘Shazam!’
Teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is given the ability to become an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) in times of need with a single magic word. Also starring Jack Dylan Grazer as Frederick “Freddy” Freeman, Djimon Hounsou as the Wizard Shazam, and Mark Strong as Dr. Thaddeus Sivana.
An Amazon princess (Gal Gadot) comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict. Also starring Chris Pine as Steve Trevor and David Thewlis as Ares.
Once home to the most advanced civilization on Earth, Atlantis is now an underwater kingdom ruled by the power-hungry King Orm (Patrick Wilson). With a vast army at his disposal, Orm plans to conquer the remaining oceanic people and then the surface world. Standing in his way is Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa), Orm’s half-human, half-Atlantean brother and true heir to the throne.
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world and battle the Justice Society, including Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), in the process.
“The world needed a hero. It got Black Adam.”
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2 hr 5 minOct 21st, 2022
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam is freed from his earthly tomb,… Read the Plot
(L to R) Margot Robbie, Daniela Melchior, Idris Elba, Sylvester Stallone, and David Dastmalchian in ‘The Suicide Squad’
Welcome to Belle Reve, the prison where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out, even join the super-secret Task Force X. Today’s assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie).
Now arm them heavily and drop them on the enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) on the ground to make them behave, and Amanda Waller’s (Viola Davis) government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement.
Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam in New
American Cinema Editors has announced it will honor The Woman King director Gina Prince-Bythewood with its ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award at the 73rd annual ACE Eddie Awards, taking place within UCLA’s Royce Hall on March 5, 2023.
The Golden Eddie is an award recognizing an artist who exemplifies distinguished achievement in the art and business of film. Past recipients include Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Kathleen Kennedy, Christopher Nolan, Lauren Shuler Donner, Guillermo del Toro, Vince Gilligan, J.J. Abrams, Nancy Meyers, Martin Scorsese, Norman Jewison, Robert Zemeckis, George Lucas, and the Sundance Institute, among others.
“A supremely versatile trailblazer from day one of her career, Gina Prince-Bythewood has consistently entertained us with intimate films and global blockbusters that explore the human experience through formidable female characters,” said ACE president Kevin Tent, ACE. “A champion of diverse, character-driven narratives, her latest film — The Woman King — is the crown jewel of a career spent pushing boundaries and telling stories that touch our hearts and minds. She is a proud supporter of the editing community and we’re so thrilled to honor her with the Golden Eddie.”
At ACE’s upcoming celebration recognizing outstanding editing in film and television, the guild will also bestow career achievement honors upon Lynne Willingham, ACE (Breaking Bad) and Don Zimmerman, ACE (Bill & Ted Face the Music), recognizing their decades of contributions to the craft of film editing. Past recipients of the ACE Career Achievement Award include Lillian Benson, ACE, Richard Chew, ACE, Alan Heim, ACE, Tina Hirsch, ACE, Thelma Schoonmaker, ACE, Janet Ashikaga, ACE, Craig McKay, ACE, Jerrold L. Ludwig, ACE, Mark Goldblatt, ACE and Leon Ortiz-Gil, ACE, to name a few.
“We are so excited and thrilled to honor Don and Lynne, two outstanding editors, for their incredible contributions to film editing history,” remarked Tent. “These two extraordinary editors are responsible for editing some of the most entertaining, moving and thrilling movies and television shows of our time. They are so deserving of their career achievement honors and we look forward to celebrating them at this year’s ACE Eddie Awards.”
Prince-Bythewood is an award-winning writer, director and producer known for helming such notable features as Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights and The Old Guard. Her most recent feature, TriStar’s The Woman King, tells the remarkable story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen. The film inspired by true events, toplined by Viola Davis and Thuso Mbedu, was cut by Prince-Bythewood’s longtime editor, Terilyn A. Shropshire, ACE. It opened September 16 and received a rare A+ CinemaScore from movie audiences. The multi-hyphenate’s upcoming projects include the Disney+ Original limited series Genius: MLK/X, starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X. 20th Television, Imagine Television and Undisputed Cinema are producing, with Prince-Bythewood and her husband Reggie Rock Bythewood exec producing for Undisputed Cinema.
Willingham started her film career as an apprentice editor at Paramount Studios almost 44 years ago. Some of her work includes the miniseries Revelations and Empire, as well as such acclaimed series as The X-Files, True Blood, The Son, Bloodline, See, Your Honor, Ray Donovan and Breaking Bad. The editor has previously won two Emmys and two ACE Eddies, and most recently cut both Ray Donovan: The Movie and American Gigolo for Showtime.
Zimmerman began his film career as an apprentice editor in music and sound effects, finding his first job as lead editor on Hal Ashby’s Coming Home, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Other notable credits for the editor — who most recently cut Bill & Ted Face the Music — include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Patch Adams, Night at the Museum, Men in Black 3, Heaven Can Wait, Rocky III and IV, A Walk in the Clouds and Dragonfly.
American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of motion picture editors founded in 1950. In addition to the ACE Eddies, the organization produces annual events including the international editing festival EditFest and Invisible Art/Visible Artists — an annual panel bringing together Oscar-nominated editors. It also publishes CinemaEditor, a quarterly magazine highlighting the art, craft and business of editing and editors.
Key dates for the 73rd annual ACE Eddie Awards can be found below:
Tuesday, November 1, 2022 Submission for Nominations Begin
Tuesday, December 13, 2022 (5pm PT) Submission for Nominations End
Monday, January 9, 2023 Nomination Ballots Sent
Monday, January 30, 2023 (5pm PT) Nomination Ballots Due (5pm)
Wednesday, February 1, 2023 Nominations Announced
Monday, February 6, 2023 Final Ballots Sent
Friday, February 10, 2023 Deadline for Advertising
February 6-23, 2023 Blue Ribbon Screenings
Friday, February 24, 2023 (5pm PT) Final Ballots Due
TBD ACE Nominee Cocktail Party
Sunday, March 5, 2023 ACE Eddie Awards
American Cinema Editors has announced it will
House of Dior officially announced their partnership with Robert Pattinson in 2013, so it’s no surprise that he was chosen to partake in their Spring 2023 menswear campaign. The campaign is rumored to be launching Nov. 10, 2022! Fans took to twitter all excited spreading the good news and welcome surprise:
Just hopping on since this morning while I was working! More information about where these DIOR photos of Robert Pattinson came from!
Robert Pattinson in the Dior spring 2023 menswear campaign.
Photographs were taken by Rafael Pavarotti! https://t.co/GYAuhUPxpE pic.twitter.com/ixIuFcgXVR
— Robert Pattinson WorldWide (@robpattinsonww) October 24, 2022
NEW ROBERT PATTINSON PICS for Dior Homme Spring 2023 posted by Esquire Taiwan https://t.co/oKTbzrxAgz pic.twitter.com/XKMgNOnFJ6
— Mr Ninja (@Robsjaw) October 26, 2022
Dior released photographs this week featuring Pattinson looking like Bruce Wayne, who he plays in the recently released movie The Batman. Pattinson is seen here wearing a mix of the brand’s various tailored pieces which range from casual sporty to tailored suits. It was shot by Rafael Pavarotti, below you will see Pattinson sporting three different looks from Jones’ Spring 2023 runway that also featured a surprise collaboration with Eli Russell Linnetz.
Also we got a teaser video from the campaign featuring sultry looks and multiple versions of himself and I am not complaining because swoon!:
Courtesy of Rafael Pavarotti & Dior
Courtesy of Rafael Pavarotti & Dior
Courtesy of Rafael Pavarotti & Dior
Pattinson is no stranger to modeling given his background with it and his mother working in a modeling agency. The actor got a taste of this at a very young age. As we can see from all these pictures, he can certainty pull it off. He first started with Dior as the face for their Dior Homme fragrance in 2013. Joining the ranks of previous Dior faces like Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron, Pattinson’s ad was photographed by Nan Goldin, while a film was shot by Romain Gavras, below you will see the steamy ad and film featuring Pattinson and French model Camille Rowe.
Courtesy of Dior
Pattinson is one of the first Hollywood actors to represent the Dior Homme fashion campaign line. The actor and the fashion house have built a relationship through the years since 2013, Being designed by Kris Van Assche and shot by the one and only Karl Lagerfeld, Pattinson modeled the autumn 2016 collection. Dior Homme offered four collections a year: spring, summer, fall and winter.
Below you will find photographs from the photoshoot shot by famous photographer, Karl Lagerfeld.
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
And behind the scenes video courtesy of Dior:
Continuing his association with the French fashion house, Pattinson starred in another Dior Homme Campaign for the Spring/Summer 2017 line. Photographed again by Karl Lagerfeld, below you will find photographs that was featured in the collection:
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Next up, Pattinson posed for Dior Homme’s Fall Winter, 2018 campaign and looked like the Dior man with their signature and classic feel and the French fashion house’s tailored pieces.
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Here the actor posed for Dior’s Spring Summer 2018 advertising campaign which was again photographed by Karl Lagerfeld. Below you will find photographs that was featured in the collection:
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
Courtesy of Karl Lagerfeld & Dior
He also did the Dior Homme‘s Spring Summer 2019 Collection for New Horizons which was photographed by fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh. Here you will find them below:
Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh & Dior
Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh & Dior
Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh & Dior
In 2020 Pattinson appeared in the I’m your man campaign. This Dior Homme advert, starring Robert Pattinson and Latvia-born Paris-based model Lana Zakocela, inspired by the iconic song “I’m your Man” by Leonard Cohen, was released in France on February 1, 2020. It was directed by The Blaze, the French producing and directing duo consisting of cousins Guillaume and Jonathan Alric.
Lastly, the caped crusader while filming The Batman was featured in the Dior Spring Summer 2021 Menswear campaign. The photoshoot was shot by the famous British fashion photographer. Here you will find them below:
Courtesy of David Sims & Dior
Courtesy of David Sims & Dior
Courtesy of David Sims & Dior
Courtesy of David Sims & Dior
One thing is for sure Pattinson never ceases to surprise us and I can’t wait to see what he has in store for us next with this fashion powerhouse.
House of Dior officially announced their partnership
Without a doubt, unknown things attract people, and they cannot resist them. Especially those that no one can solve. And it is in such a strange and frightening atmosphere that the creators of this new hit – Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan – immerse the audience. Just recently their project about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was released on Netflix, from which viewers will take a long time to recover. And their new project is already available to us for viewing on the same platform. The title alone – The Watcher – will make the audience shiver, and their blood run cold in their veins. And when such professionals like Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan get down to business, the audience is even more interested in this project. But this story is also interesting because it is based on real events. So what’s the story about? You’ll find out soon…
This show tells the real story of a family (of course, their last name is changed in the series) who receives a series of letters from a “mysterious stranger” after they move into their dream house in Westfield, New Jersey. Dean (Bobby Cannavale) and Nora Brannock (Naomi Watts) have spent most of their lives in the city. In search of a quieter life, Dean spends all his savings on buying a beautiful house built in the early 20th century. After they move into their dream house with their two children, strange and very frightening events begin to happen. You might wonder what can happen in a nice quiet neighborhood like this? At first glance, this place seems to this family like a real paradise on earth.
Courtesy of Netflix
But, unfortunately, it’s just a beautiful cover. As soon as the Brannock family tries to fit into this beautiful life, terrifying events begin to happen in their house. And nothing seems so sweet and innocent anymore. The neighbors who surround them begin to frighten them with their unpredictable behavior. And it seems that everyone is against their family. It seems as if it can’t get any worse. But no, it will! In their mail box the Brannocks discover strange letters from an unknown person who calls themself “the Watcher”. At first, these letters do not portend anything bad. But is it so? Over time, they become so creepy and threatening that the Brannocks fear for their lives.
But things get even worse when the mysterious “Watcher” and protector of this house demands that Dean and Nora give the house “what it wants”. Throughout the episodes, the creators of the show are trying to answer many questions and entice viewers into this mystical world. But, of course, the most important questions are – who is this “Watcher” and what is this person trying to obtain from the Brannock family? But we are not given a specific answer to these questions. Because in the real story, this mysterious “Watcher” was never found and revealed. Naturally, in the series, they can’t reveal this to us either. But creators of this show are so good at what they do that they give viewers the opportunity “to solve this case” themselves.
When watching this series, viewers will constantly ask this question – who is this mysterious person “the Watcher”? As soon as all these horrific events begin, the Brannocks (and, no doubt, the audience too) begin to suspect literally everyone. Moreover, the frightening music and a rather gloomy atmosphere scare the audience even more. The directors always use this technique to make it interesting for the audience to solve this riddle. But, nevertheless, what scares us, always draws us in even more. But why is everyone under suspicion? Because that’s the way it is.
Courtesy of Netflix
Nora and Dean’s neighbors are a community of people who have their own rules and laws. And they are definitely not thrilled about the arrival of a new family in this “beautiful house”. But why?! The answer to this question is simple. The house doesn’t belong to them, but they all want to own it. In other words, these people are just “obsessed” with this house. And each of them shows their obsession in their own way. It seems that this family is in some kind of sinister trap where everything is against them.
Their neighbors Maureen (Margo Martindale) and Mitch (Richard Kind) watch the Brannocks closely through binoculars and are not friendly with them. Others – Pearl (Mia Farrow) and her emotionally unstable brother Jasper (Terry Kinney) – meddle in their own business and constantly wonder what the Brannocks will do with this house. And all this, of course, confuses the Brannocks. They literally do everything in their power to protect their family from the attacks of “the Watcher” and at the same time from their strange neighbors. But can’t anyone in this city help them?
Courtesy of Netflix
It seems that only Nora’s old friend Karen Calhoun (Jennifer Coolidge) is on their side. She helped them buy this “dream house”. But was she really helping? Over time, Karen also begins to behave very suspiciously. What about the police? Detective Rourke Chamberland (Christopher McDonald), at first glance, seems very suspicious. Perhaps he knows something about the mysterious “Watcher” and sometimes does not even hide it. The only one who agrees to help the Brannock family is a private investigator (former singer) Theodora Birch (Noma Dumezweni). At first glance, it seems that she is also in cahoots with the locals, but this is far from the case. She turns out to be the only person who really helps this family.
Every time the next episode ends, the audience has even more questions, and it all grows like a snowball. Towards the end of the season, each of the characters and even the Brannock family itself come under suspicion. The audience’s head is spinning from the number of mysteries and riddles that come out with each new episode of this show. Among other things, this series shows the ideal Brannock family (as it seems), but over time it disintegrates right before our eyes. Was it so perfect after all? Or was it also a “beautiful cover”? Undoubtedly, all these terrible events affected the development of relationships in this family, but they were already broken.
Of course, we must pay tribute to the creators of this project – Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. This series is very unusual and interesting for its emotional intensity and abundance of plot twists. The viewer thinks that nothing terrible will happen for sure. But as soon as the audience relaxes, the creators of the series again add new and unpredictable moments to the plot. Without a doubt, this series wouldn’t be so interesting to watch if it weren’t for the perfectly matched cast. Everyone reveals new sides of themselves to the viewer and even the minor roles are played at the highest level.
Courtesy of Netflix
But especially, of course, it is especially worth noting the amazing performance of the following actors. Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale really complement each other well. On the one hand, Cannavale shows us a storm of emotions and feelings that control him throughout the series. Sometimes he reacts very sharply to situations, but the viewer empathizes with him. On the other hand, Watts shows her vulnerability and fragility but, at certain moments, she shows resilience to everything that happens to her family. It’s a really rare mixture. And each of them adds a piece of their signature styles to their roles.
Jennifer Coolidge is just beautiful in her role. It seems that she is not acting, and once she was a real estate agent herself. But this is the goal of a brilliant actor – to show it so that we believe. And the combination of oozing sexuality and excellent humor surpasses all the audience’s expectations. After all, it is so important to be able to joke (and at the same time look stunning) and do it so that even in such a gloomy film, the audience could laugh out loud. And Coolidge does it amazingly and in her inimitable manner.
Courtesy of Netflix
Another amazing and phenomenal actor is Noma Dumezweni. She plays a very interesting and mystical character. You might wonder what could be mysterious about a private investigator? But as soon as the Noma’s character appears on the screen, all questions immediately disappear. Her motives and goals will become clear to the viewer only by the end of the season. It is very interesting to watch her amazing investigation and the information she learns along the way. This character so immerses the audience in this investigation that it seems that they also want to solve this mystery.
And of course, this series is also different due to the fact that in addition to a wonderful narrative and quite fascinating plot twists, a recurring note of black humor is added here. Is it really appropriate to do this in this kind of series? Yes, when the creators of this show do it unobtrusively and at the most appropriate plot moments.
Courtesy of Netflix
The Watcher is a stunningly mystical and gloomy story that has been masterfully adapted to the TV screen. This is a perfect example of how an amazing script, cast and the main idea of the creators of the series can turn a real story into a great TV show that millions of viewers will follow.
Of course, the Watcher’s mystery will remain unsolved forever. But that shouldn’t stop viewers from watching this show. Start watching the first episode, and you definitely won’t be able to tear yourself away from the screen.
Check out the official trailer below:
The TV series is currently streaming now on Netflix.
Without a doubt, unknown things attract people,
We are pleased to announce the official winners of the Urban Legend Horror short film competition! It was a very difficult choice, and we received some incredible submissions, but after careful consideration we have chosen our Top 3.
Thank you to everyone who submitted.
First Place
Second Place
Third Place
Help us meet our goal of raising £10,000
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Bailey Graham is the Marketing and Media and follows her passion on the side as a successful sculpture artist. She has won many awards for her work, being recognized by adobe as well as often featured in art blogs.
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A 15-year-old girl has been charged following an officer-involved hit and run Thursday morning in Calgary.
At around 3:30 a.m. on Oct. 27, a woman called the Calgary Police Service to report her 15-year-old daughter was missing along with the woman’s vehicle.
The mother tracked her daughter’s location to the Huntington Hills area using a locator app on her daughter’s cellphone.
Police located the vehicle in the 0 to 100 block of Hunterhorn Drive N.E. with two occupants inside.
“As one officer was speaking to the driver, the driver pulled the vehicle away from the curb, making contact with the officer’s leg, and fled the area,” police said in a press release.
After the girl returned home, she was arrested. The 15-year-old has been charged with one count of motor vehicle theft.
Police continue to investigate the incident.
Anyone with information is asked to call the CPS non-emergency line at 403-266-1234, or to provide anonymous tips to Crime Stoppers.
A 15-year-old girl has been charged following
Kourtney Kardashian and her husband, Travis Barker, have collaborated on a collection of cruelty-free, all-natural, and vegan goods for the rocker’s Barker Wellbeing label, which has lately moved into the skincare market.
The collection consists of three items: two distinct types of bath flakes, a body oil, and a body butter. The body oil retails for $40, while the other two products cost $35 each. Unfortunately, the collection can only be purchased through the websites of Barker Wellness and Poosh.
This cooperation came about due to my fascination with taking baths, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and taking care of my body, and I am over the moon with how the finished items turned out. In a press statement, Kim Kardashian, 43, said, “I wish that you enjoy this collection as much as we do and that it becomes a part of regular as they are a part of ours.” Currently, Kardashian and her family regularly use her new brand’s products.
Both Kourtney and I are passionate about leading healthy lives. Barker, who is 46 years old, noted that it is exciting to share the items they have created with the world because they are products that they love and require to help with recovery and well-being.
The magnesium in the Rejuvenation and Calm versions of bath flakes comes directly from the old Zechstein seabed. The Rejuvenate variety also uses lava clay from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.
In contrast, the Calm type boasts OptiMSM (Methylsulfonylmethane), an organic sulfur-containing component that, based on the announcement, can assist maximize the workout effects and the post-workout reset. Both variations of bath flakes are available for purchase.
The body butter features a blend of identical elements in whipped shea butter. In contrast, the body oil comprises a mixture of other organic oils such as jojoba, sweet almond, and lavender.
Twitter today is filled with users who say they’re done with the site and don’t want to tweet their thoughts on a Musk-run app. Unfortunately, there’s no one clear Twitter alternative, and even if there was everyone would have to agree to relocate to the same service.
One buzzy option is Mastodon, an open source Twitter alternative that has tried to catch on as a less toxic Twitter for years. Mastodon gained 27,796 new accounts this past week, and 7,719 on the day after Musk took over, Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko said on Friday.
Twitter today is filled with users who
“The Shining” icon Shelley Duvall is back on the big screen.
After parting ways with Hollywood more than 20 years ago, Duvall is set to star in “The Forest Hills,” an upcoming thriller from writer/director Scott Goldberg (“Moirai: The Drifter”). “The Forest Hills” is centered on Rico, a disturbed man (Chiko Mendez) who is plagued with nightmare visions after enduring head trauma while camping in the Catskill Mountains, as Deadline reported. The cast also includes Edward Furlong and Dee Wallace.
Duvall will play Rico’s mother, who serves as his inner voice. The “Three Women” alum previously appeared in the 2002 comedy “Manna from Heaven” and announced her retirement that same year.
“We are huge fans of ‘The Shining’ and it’s honestly one of my favorite horror movies of all time, up there with John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’ and George A. Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’ with the dark tones they delivered in their movies, along with perfect scores and elements that make them my personal favorites,” Goldberg said of Duvall’s casting. “Shelley contributed to ‘The Shining’ being an absolute masterpiece by giving her all, and performing in a way that really showcased the fear and horror of a mother in isolation.”
“The Forest Hills” is produced by Scott Hansen alongside Dreznick Goldberg Productions and Digital Thunderdome Studios, with Goldberg serving as co-producer.
Duvall exited public life decades ago, notoriously appearing in 2016 on “Dr. Phil,” where she said she was “very sick” and needed mental health support. In 2021, she gave a wide-ranging interview to The Hollywood Reporter, seeming lively and content with her life outside the limelight in Texas. Duvall has won a Peabody Award, the Cannes Film Festival’s prize for Best Actress, two Emmy nominations, and a BAFTA nomination for her work with Robert Altman in “Brewster McCloud,” “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Nashville,” “Three Women,” and “Popeye,” and more films like “Annie Hall,” “Roxanne,” and of course, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”
Duvall landed a Razzie Award for Worst Actress in “The Shining” back in 1980, with Razzie co-founders John J.B. Wilson and Maureen Murphy rescinding the satirical honor more than 40 years later.
“Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized her, I would take that back,” Murphy said earlier this year. “We’re willing to say, ‘Yeah, maybe that shouldn’t have been nominated.’ Everybody makes mistakes. That’s being human.”
Kubrick’s daughter Vivian Kubrick helmed the documentary “Making ‘The Shining,’” which captured the emotional toll the film took on Duvall. Kubrick pushed Duvall to the limit across a half-year-long shoot at Elstree Studios in England.
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Duvall retreated from Hollywood two decades ago,
Jamie Lee Curtis has watched her career hit another high this year, not only wrapping up her four-decade-plus association with the Halloween franchise and her iconic role as Laurie Strode, but also as the wacky tax auditor Deidre Beaubeirdre in one of the certified smash critical and audience hits of the year, Everything Everywhere All At Once. It seems the time for a tribute is definitely in order, and that is exactly what she will get on February 11 when she receives the highest award the Santa Barbara Film Festival hands out: the Maltin Modern Master Award.
The award is named for famed film critic, author and historian Leonard Maltin, who will be conducting the in-person conversation onstage with Curtis at the Arlington Theatre.
“Jamie Lee Curtis has long since proven that she has staying power. People want to watch her, whether it’s in a Halloween movie or an offbeat character role. She’s talented and charismatic, and in the process does her movie-star parents proud,” said Maltin.
Curtis has demonstrated her versatility as a film actress, starring in acclaimed films such as the blockbuster True Lies, for which she won a Golden Globe; Trading Places, for which she earned a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress; A Fish Called Wanda, for which she received duel Best Actress nominations from BAFTA and the Golden Globes; and the Disney feature film Freaky Friday, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. In 2021, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival.
Among recent hits was 2019’s Knives Out. In addition to her acting career on the big screen and television, Curtis is a bestselling children’s book author having written 13 books.
The Modern Master Award was established in 1995 to honor an individual who has enriched our culture through accomplishments in the motion picture industry. It was re-named the Maltin Modern Master Award in 2015 to recognize Maltin’s long association with SBIFF. Past recipients include Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, Bill Murray, Brad Pitt, Glenn Close, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton, Bruce Dern, Ben Affleck, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Cate Blanchett, Will Smith, George Clooney and Peter Jackson.
The 38th Santa Barbara Film Festival will take place live February 8-18. Official events including screenings, filmmaker Q&As, industry panels, and celebrity tributes will be held throughout the city.
Jamie Lee Curtis has watched her career
Wednesday night, Marvel’s long-awaited sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premiered, and cast, crew, and fans from all over the world came together to walk the purple carpet and celebrate the film.
Here are all the looks from the night:
4.
Courtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett
6.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky
7.
Simone Ledward-Boseman
10.
Zinzi Evans and Ryan Coogler
14.
Janeshia Adams-Ginyard
23.
Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
36.
Sheila Kelley and Richard Schiff
42.
Rebecca Gross and Berkeley Gross
47.
Divine Love Konadu-Sun
54.
Autumn Durald Arkapaw
56.
And finally, Elsa Majimbo
Quentin Tarantino is setting the record straight on Kanye West’s claims that the director stole his idea for the plot for his Oscar-winning film Django Unchained.
West made the claim in an interview earlier this week with Piers Morgan, telling Morgan he pitched a similar slavery idea to Tarantino when the two met to talk about the rapper’s 2005 Gold Digger music video.
“There’s no truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django. And then he told it to me and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea, let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.” OK that didn’t happen,” Tarantino told Kimmel.
Tarantino acknowledged, “He [West] did have an idea for a video, and I do think it was for the Gold Digger video, that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative, where he’s the slave, and he’s singing “Gold Digger.” And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea.”
Kimmel then questioned, “A funny slave video?”
‘It was meant to be ironic,” Tarantino clarified. “And it’s like a huge musical. I mean, like no expenses spared with him in this slave rag outfit, doing everything. And then that was also part of the part of the pushback on it.”
In the end, the music video for “Gold Digger” didn’t go with the idea West alleged he had. Django Unchained is a 2012 revisionist Western film about a freed slave (Foxx) who teams up with a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to free his wife from a slavery.
You can watch Tarantino’s interview with Kimmel above.
Quentin Tarantino is setting the record straight
It’s always the right time to watch horror movies, but it just feels better at Halloween. October is made for warm drinks, cozy sweaters, and jump scares. And there is no shortage of classic films (and shows!) to dig into during this time of the year. But that means the new stuff can often be overlooked — which is a shame because this year in particular featured a handful of interesting additions to the spooky season canon, from family-friendly stop-motion to much more disturbing horror anthologies. Here are six recent releases across Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus to watch after the trick-or-treating is done.
Though it’s only coming out just now, Wendell & Wild still manages to feel like a classic piece of the spooky canon of [Henry] Selick films that many of us grew up loving, one that will become part of the Halloween rotation for years to come.
Cabinet of Curiosities is definitely something that will appeal to fans of del Toro’s work. But it also expands beyond those horizons with a collection of very different takes on horror. It’s what I imagine wandering around Bleak House would be like: a glimpse into del Toro’s mind through the work that inspires him.
The Midnight Club… is clearly part of this [Mike Flanagan] anthology series but differentiates itself by playing like a collection of fireside ghost stories. It’s a little uneven, but when it works, it channels the best parts of [The Haunting of] Hill House.
There’s quite a bit to admire about Hellraiser, particularly for those interested in testing their own limitations with consuming disturbing works of art. But in its efforts to be as beautiful as it is macabre, Hellraiser sometimes becomes almost too potent of a grotesquerie, which to be fair, may be either a feature or a bug depending on what kinda stuff you’re into.
Streaming services like Disney Plus open up the possibilities for stuff that’s a lot weirder, and we’ve already seen some of that in the form of What If…?, I Am Groot, and Star Wars: Visions. Werewolf by Night expands that experimental spirit to the world of live-action. It’s kind of like a Marvel movie crossed with Tales From the Crypt, and it does something that the more recent blockbusters have often failed at: it makes me want more.
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone might not be quite as memorable as some of [Stephen] King’s more iconic stories. It’s hard to imagine it penetrating the public consciousness like Carrie or It. But it’s also a great showcase for some of the writer’s less-celebrated strengths: namely, building strong relationships between characters and imbuing everyday objects or moments with a newfound sense of dread. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone might not terrify you in the moment, but it made me jump the next time I heard my phone ring.
It’s always the right time to watch
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages are Davis’ assessment of the current standings of the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any film or performance. Like any organization or body that votes, each individual category is fluid and subject to change. Predictions are updated every Thursday.
LAST UPDATED: Oct. 27, 2022
Shonka Dukureh as Big Mama Thornton in “Elvis”
Warner. Bros Pictures
CATEGORY COMMENTARY: Ruth E. Carter became the first Black woman to win this category for “Black Panther” (2018). With two other nominations for “Malcolm X” (1992) and “Amistad” (1997), she even has a few snubs under her belt including “Dolemite Is My Name” (2019). Her work on “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is another worthy entry that could bring her back to the stage.
Other hot titles vying for attention for best costume design include Catherine Martin’s music threads in “Elvis,” Gersha Phillips’ creation of the Dahomey in “The Woman King” and Mary Zophres’ upcoming look at old Hollywood in “Babylon.
See the latest film predictions, in all 23 categories, in one place on Variety’s Oscars Collective.
To see the ranked predictions for each individual category, visit Variety’s Oscars Hub.
BEST PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR | ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY | ADAPTED SCREENPLAY | ANIMATED FEATURE | PRODUCTION DESIGN | CINEMATOGRAPHY | COSTUME DESIGN | FILM EDITING | MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING | SOUND | VISUAL EFFECTS | ORIGINAL SCORE | ORIGINAL SONG | DOCUMENTARY FEATURE | INTERNATIONAL FEATURE | ANIMATED SHORT | DOCUMENTARY SHORT | LIVE ACTION SHORT
The 95th Oscars ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre and televised live on Sunday, March 12, 2022, on ABC.
2022 category winner: “Cruella” (Walt Disney Pictures) – Jenny Beavan
Variety’s unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provides inside reports on all the contenders in this year’s awards season races. In addition to predictions, the section includes — Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders in the race; Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly series featuring interviews with the top contenders in the awards race and an expert roundtable discussion with Variety’s leading editors and columnists; Awards Circuit Predictions Video Series, a deep dive into specific categories, led by the leading pundits.
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home
Two years after SZA first teased her song “Shirt,” the song is finally out. On Friday, SZA released the track — teased originally as “Bloodstain/Shirt.”
“Bloodstain on my shirt/New bitch on my nerves/Old n—a got curved/Going back on my word/Damn, bitch, you like thirty,” SZA sings in the chorus. “Stealing all of my worth/Still question my affection/Let you all in my mental/Got me lookin’ so desperate.”
In the new music video, directed by Dave Meyers, SZA stars with actor and musician LaKeith Lee Stanfield, who also appears in the visuals for “I Hate U.” The pair are seen cycling through different lifetimes together, from pizza shop heists to going undercover as nuns. As both SZA and Stanfield eventually meet their fatal ends, each lover is shown haunting the other from the past. In the final scene, SZA solo-rides a boat into a rainbow. As the credits roll, SZA teases yet another track, this one with the lyrics: “It’s so embarrassing/All of the things I need living in side of me/I can’t see it/It’s so embarrassing/ All of the love I seek living in side of me/I can’t see/I’m blind.”
The teeny snippet of “Shirt” that SZA originally teased on Instagram back in 2020 became a viral sensation on TikTok, with fans dancing along to it. She also teased the unreleased song in the outro of her “Good Days” music video, where she’s seen pole dancing to the song. And last summer, during her 360-degree In Bloom performance for Grey Goose, SZA performed a minute-long snippet of the track.
Back in June 2021, SZA spoke to People about the track and how it “wasn’t going to be included on the album” but has since become its centerpiece.
“It’s always interesting to see what people gravitate toward and what they don’t,” she said. “And I think that teaches a lot about the human psyche and our culture at the same time. It’s always a surprise for me, always on both ends, whether something is positively received or negatively received.”
“Sometimes what I like doesn’t line up with other people, and that is tricky, always tricky,” she added. “You never know what people want to see. It’s just a matter of how much you psych yourself up and do what you want to do no matter what anyone else wants to see. It takes a lot of willpower and energy.”
Over the summer, SZA released a deluxe edition of her 2017 LP Ctrl, after releasing “I Hate U” in late 2021. This year, she joined Future on DJ Khaled’s song “Beautiful” and sings with Doechii on a remix of the rapper’s track “Persuasive.”
Two years after SZA first teased
Writer-director-producer-editor Bobby Blood’s Hell Nurse is his sophomore feature-length effort. The horror film’s an intentionally cheesy effort harkening back to 1970s revenge thrillers such as I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House On The Left. The filmmaker throws in some Satanic rituals just for good measure. Is this throwback horror a success, or is it dead on arrival?
Darla (Fiona Kennedy) is a caretaker for a sweet old couple. One particular night, criminals Wayne (Brad Stein), Terry (Steve Miller), and Stacy (Rachel Rigall) bust into the couple’s home, kill them and leave Darla for dead. The thing is, Darla did not die that day, and after a year of recovery, she goes back to being a nurse.
But a desire for revenge has been burning inside Darla this whole time. Since Darla sold her soul to the Devil, her chance to avenge the couple and feed her hunger for violence is now at hand. Will viewers be as satisfied with her murder dishes as Darla is?
Hell Nurse is an interesting mashup of a revenge thriller and a demonic horror flick. It’s surprising that more films don’t blend the two together as they work well together (general supernatural eerieness is not the same as a pact with the Dark Lord). Blood realizes that adding in the Satan stuff makes his horror film more over the top than the usual revenge tales. As such, he throws audiences a curveball: comedy.
“…Darla sold her soul to the Devil…to avenge the couple and feed her hunger for violence…”
The movie is full of intentionally funny moments that initially seem incongruous with the darker parts of the plot. But, as the story progresses, the humor fits more and more. This gives the production a unique vibe, though it takes some getting used to.
The director uses digital effects to add grain to just about every scene of Hell Nurse. Unfortunately, the effects are awkwardly noticeable and don’t enhance the picture as presumably intended. The CGI blood splatter is also only so-so. But the physical carnage and mayhem of Darla’s rampage are really well done. The practical effects are impressive, especially a face that appears to have been seared off near the end.
Kennedy gives an interesting performance. Before her deal with Satan, the actor comes off as stiff and wooden. But, after revenge is guaranteed to be hers, Kennedy feels more natural in the role. She is sinister and vicious in all the right ways to sell the brutality.
Stein, Miller, and Rigall are all effective as the baddies of the picture. Each of them plays their characters’ penchant for crime with a sense of fun, and they share solid chemistry. Bradford Eckhart plays Father Moretti, and he’s hysterical. But the best performance belongs to Brittney Ladd as Carrie. Every line she says is creepy yet enticing at the same time.
Hell Nurse will appeal to gorehounds and horror fans longing for the icky atmosphere of the 1970s. While it has flaws, the film more than makes up for them in the balancing of tones and graphic violence. For the most part, the cast embodies their roles believably and knows what kind of picture they are in.
For more information on Hell Nurse, visit Bobby Blood’s Instagram page.
Writer-director-producer-editor Bobby Blood’s Hell Nurse is his
