The tradition at Saturday Night Live is to throw new cast members to the wolves and bring back the ones with the fewest bite marks. But this season has already devoted an unusually large amount of time making them look good – including a sketch this week featuring all four newbies and a stand-out performance from Molly Kearney.
In many ways, it’s a new take on the classic Kate McKinnon alien abduction sketches – Kearney is a gritty survivor clinging on to the wild circumstances of their life. Set up like a behind-the-scenes interview segment, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Marcello Hernandez all talk about how gently they’ve been welcomed, and how kind show creator Lorne Michaels is.
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Meanwhile, Kearney is dragged through South America on her way to assassinate Vladmir Putin, on Michaels’ orders. Distraught, they recount, “Lorne says, ‘We can get you to Russia, but we can’t promise we can get you out!’ And I really want to be on SNL, so I’m just nodding my head and saying, ‘Anything you say, sir!’”
It’s a fantastic premise that stays grounded by the very mundane observations of the other three. Being recognized on the street… relaxing into the role… getting an accountant. Meanwhile, Kearney is screaming, “Is Kelly Ripa going to pay for my funeral?!”
Perhaps the best moment of the sketch is when a soldier is barking orders at Kearney and they have to decide if it’s the right time for “the pronoun talk” (Kearney uses they/them pronouns, and are the first non-binary performer on SNL). It’s a delightful bit of subversion and an incredibly smart way to slip a potentially contentious topic into an otherwise straightforward piece.
Showcasing new cast and some light satire? This season looks promising.
The meddling kids will be solving mysteries on their own in the upcoming Mindy Kaling-led series set to premiere next year.
The “Scooby-Doo” universe is about to come back in a big way, but don’t expect Scooby-Doo to be involved. “Velma,” a new adult animated series that features Mindy Kaling as the voice of the titular character, promises to satisfy longtime fans of the cartoon series who want to pair their nostalgia with a more mature sense of humor. It features adult versions of the crew from the mystery machine, but in order to ensure that Velma is front and center, Scooby himself won’t be making any appearances.
Appearing on a panel for the show at New York Comic-Con (via Insider), showrunner Charlie Grandy explained that the decision to omit Scooby-Doo from the series was an attempt to differentiate the adult show from the family friendly property that inspired it.
Courtesy of Getty Images/ReedPop
“When we were going into the show and thinking about adapting it, we wanted to be respectful,” Grandy said. “We didn’t want to just kind of take these beloved characters and put them in outrageous or gross situations and say, ‘Isn’t it crazy you did that to Velma?’”
While they considered finding ways to add Scooby-Doo to the show, the creative team just couldn’t find a way to balance the two sensibilities.
“We couldn’t get a take on it that was like, ‘How do we kind of do this in a fun, modern way?’” he said. “That felt like what made it a kid show was, Scooby-Doo.”
Grandy also made it clear that even though Scooby-Doo won’t show his face, the new series still exists in the same universe as the iconic mystery-solving canine.
“I think it’s nice to kind of allude to dogs in the world,” he said. “It’s fun and let’s just kinda leave it that.”
The more adult subject matter in “Velma” is likely to please James Gunn, who attempted to write an R-rated live action “Scooby Doo” movie in 2002 before studio interference ultimately led to the script being watered down into a family friendly film.
“The first Scooby-Doo was originally intended (by me, the producers & the director, Raja Gosnell) to be PG-13, but we never got a PG-13 rating,” Gunn recently wrote on Twitter. “The first rating from the MPAA was R, & then a bunch of stuff was changed, & that cut ended up being rated PG.”
Check out trailer below:
“Velma” is set to begin streaming on HBO Max in 2023.
Kim Kardashian is launching her true-crime podcast, The System: The Case of Kevin Keith, which will air exclusively on the audio streaming platform Spotify. The first two episodes have already premiered on October 3rd as an extended preview; then, the remaining six will be aired weekly on Mondays.
The project comes more than two years after Kim scored a deal with Spotify and hopes to raise attention to the unfair ways of the law and justice systems that can be disheartening.
To summarize, The System will be narrated by Kim and true crime producer Lori Rothschild Ansaldi, whose work can be seen across Investigation Discovery. In the podcast, the alleged crimes of Kevin Keith will be discussed, along with interviews with Keith. In 1994, Keith was charged with a triple homicide in Ohio, but no evidence has been linked to him and the crimes. As a result, Keith spent twenty-eight years in prison, with a large portion on death row. His sentence was commuted to life with no possibility of parole in 2010 and has remained there since.
His family, including Keith’s brother Charles, always believed he was innocent. With Kim’s help, they have been working on getting Keith’s unjustifiable story out and hope for his release.
“I’m really hopeful for this podcast, just to get your story out there because I think it’s so important for people to understand that… our system is so *expletive* up.” – Kim during The System‘s premiere.
Last year, Kim passed the baby bar exam in California, and her experience has been documented on her Hulu series The Kardashians during the first season that streamed earlier this year.
The Kardashians star lobbied with former President Trump in 2018 to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson. She served over two decades behind bars for a first-time nonviolent drug trafficking offense. Thanks to Kim, Johnson was released from prison with a new lease on life. She has since written a memoir, After Life: My Journey From Incarceration to Freedom, highlighting her jail time and her faith, with a forward written by Kim Kardashian.
Will you be listening to Kim’s podcast? Let us know in the comments.
Have you ever had an experience that was so powerful it knocked you out of your body? And even as the event was still unfolding, the objective, analytical part of your consciousness was standing off to the side practically shouting, “Is this really happening? Or am I dreaming?!!”
I’ve had the pleasure of this strange experience twice in the last few months at screenings for my new documentary, Mama Bears, which premiered in March at SXSW. The first time was during a Q&A session at the Seattle International Film Festival when a sweet-faced, middle-aged woman raised her hand to say she was an evangelical Christian who had been struggling to accept her non-binary grandchild. “But now that I’ve seen your film, I understand so much more and I know that I have to join the mama bears movement,” she asserted. And I promptly burst into tears.
The mama bears are a group of mothers 35,000 strong—many from conservative, Christian backgrounds—who have joined forces to love, accept and fight ferociously for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, including their own children. My film portrays the journeys of two such mothers, Kimberly Shappley and Sara Cunningham, as well as the story of Tammi Terrell Morris, a young African American lesbian whose struggle for familial and self-acceptance perfectly exemplifies why we desperately need these ferocious moms.
After dedicating five long, hard years of my life to making this movie—writing grant application after grant application (Mama Bears is an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee), scrimping, saving, pitching, shooting, editing, and practically begging to get it made, I couldn’t have asked for a more incredible sense of accomplishment than I felt in that moment. And then it happened again.
After a screening in Oklahoma City, I ran into a man in the lobby who candidly shared, “I really didn’t even want to come to see this film, but something made me and I’m so glad I did. It really opened my eyes. I swear I’m not just saying this, but it’s the best documentary I’ve ever seen.” Although I didn’t cry that time, it was still incredibly moving to see the difference a movie can make in action. And part of me was definitely standing off to the side jumping up and down with joy.
If you’re an independent filmmaker who’s ever said, “If my film can touch one person’s heart or change one mind, I’ll have accomplished my goal,” then you get it. Amidst all the nightmarish events happening Every. Damn. Day. It’s really a dream come true to see love win. It’s a rare, beautiful gift to be cherished.
As my film and I travel the country presenting audiences with new ways of seeing, being and loving please, don’t wake me. I’m dreaming.
Mama Bears continues on the festival circuit this month—LGBTQ+ History Month—with stops at ImageOut Rochester Film Festival, Tampa Bay Internaitonal Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Reel Q Pittsbugh, Seattle Queer Film Festival, Winnipeg Pride and Newfest, among others.
Director/Producer Daresha Kyi is an Emmy Award-winning director who also writes and produces films and television in Spanish and English. A graduate of NYU Film School, Mama Bears is her second feature documentary. In 2018 she was commissioned by the ACLU to direct the short Trans in America: Texas Strong, which garnered over 4.5 million views online, screened at SXSW and won two Webby Awards and an Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary. In 2017 she co-directed Chavela, an award-winning portrait of iconic singer Chavela Vargas.
The search for survivors was continuing into the early hours of the morning after a horror petrol station explosion killed three people in a quiet Irish village.
The Irish Garda last night confirmed here were three fatalities in an explosion at an Applegreen service station in Co Donegal, as the rescue operation continued more than 12 hours after the initial blast.
Cranes and sniffer dogs were called up, and fire and rescue services from nearby Northern Ireland were drafted in to help deal with the tragedy.
The mayor of Derry said that the incident, which occurred at around 3pm on Friday, was a gas explosion. The impact caused adjacent apartment buildings to collapse, sparking a search and rescue operation with nervous locals watching on.
Nearby Letterkenny University Hospital moved to major emergency standby and appealed to the public not to attend its emergency department unless it is urgent.
Local hotels also announced late on Friday evening that they were no longer taking bookings as they offered their rooms out to emergency services working throughout the night.
Some people were being treated in hospital yesterday evening while others remain ‘trapped’ at the scene, according to Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty.
Irish Premier Micheal Martin last night said his ‘thoughts and prayers’ were with the community and those who lost their lives in the tragic blast.
Three people have died with police still searching through rubble after a horror petrol station explosion ripped through a quiet Irish village on Friday
Police confirmed there were three fatalities in an explosion at an Applegreen service station in Co Donegal, as the emergency search operation continues more than seven hours after the initial blast. Pictured: A crane assists in the search and rescue operation late on Friday
A major incident has been declared after a gas explosion at a petrol station in County Donegal, north-western Ireland
Horror images taken by passersby showed the damage at the Applegreen filling station in Creeslough
Dramatic pictures last night showed homes above the Ulster petrol station and convenience store left almost entirely hollowed out by the blast.
In a statement the Irish police force, An Garda Siochana, said: ‘An Garda Siochana continue to assist other emergency services at the scene of a serious ongoing incident that occurred at approximately 3:20pm on Friday, 7th October, 2022, at a premises on the N56 at Creeslough, County Donegal.
‘This emergency response has been led by the Donegal County Council Fire Service with assistance by An Garda Siochana, the National Ambulance Service, Irish Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Rescue 118 Helicopter, Irish Air Corps Medivac 112, Northern Ireland Ambulance HEMS, Irish Community Air Ambulance (Ground Crew), Northern Ireland Urban Search and Rescue, Meavagh Fire Service, Donegal Mountain Rescue, Northern Ireland Ambulance Service HART team (Hazardous Area Response Team) and the Donegal County Council Civil Defence.
‘At this time, An Garda Siochana can confirm there has been three fatalities as a result of this serious incident.
‘This continues to be an ongoing operation and An Garda Siochana are not in a position to provide further information on casualties at this time.
‘An Garda Siochana continue to request that any road users intending to travel to the Creeslough area for any reason consider alternative routes as emergency services continue to deal with this ongoing incident.’
Multiple emergency service vehicles attended and a Coastguard helicopter also provided support. The NI Fire Service, Air Ambulance and paramedics from Northern Ireland dashed over the border to assist emergency services.
The Shandon Hotel in nearby Marblehill also announced it had stopped taking bookings for the night as it is making free rooms available for members of the emergency services.
Local Gardaí police and the National Ambulance Service (NAS) urged locals to avoid the area.
Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said his thoughts were with those affected by the ‘tragic events’.
The Tánaiste tweeted: ‘Terrible news from Donegal tonight. Our thoughts are with all those affected by the tragic events and with the emergency services responding.’
Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister last night said he was thinking and praying for the community of Creeslough and across Donegal.
Simon Coveney tweeted: ‘Thinking of and praying for the community of Cresslough and across Donegal tonight.
‘Such a shocking and tragic day, continuing into tonight.
‘Thank you to all emergency teams working together through the night.’
TD Pearse Doherty told RTE News that it was after 3pm when the ‘devastating’ explosion took place that has left ‘a very very dark cloud’ over the community.
‘It ripped right through this building, and this was a very busy location at that point in time,’ he said, explaining that the site holds the petrol station, deli counter, post office, shop and hairdressers for the area.
He said: ‘There’s just quiet, it’s surreal. People are just holding on for hope, holding on to hear news, positive news coming from the emergency services.’
Homes above the Ulster petrol station and convenience store were pictured hollowed out by the blast
Rubble covered the ground as members of the public searched the scene for injured people
Local councillor Donal Mandy Kelly said the news was ‘devastating’.
He added: ‘My thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved.’
Independent Donegal councillor John O’Donnell said he was praying there were no fatalities.
‘What we’re hearing is there’s just absolute carnage in Creeslough at the moment, there’s a massive gas explosion,’ he told BBC Radio Ulster.
‘The feedback I’m getting from family and friends who are unfortunately down at the scene and in the area is just that the whole place is chaos at the minute, everybody’s very, very taken back and devastated of what’s happening.’
Multiple emergency service vehicles are in attendance and a Coastguard helicopter was also providing support
Local Gardaí police and the National Ambulance Service (NAS) urged locals to avoid the area
Fianna Fail councillor Anthony Molloy said it is ‘beyond words’ as he knows the family who own the service station.
‘My thoughts and prayers are with everyone involved,’ Mr Molloy said.
‘It looks horrific from what I can see from photographs. It looks terrible. It’s just terrible.
‘I know the family. It’s beyond words.’
An Garda Siochana asked motorists travelling towards Creeslough to consider alternative routes.
An Garda Siochana asked motorists travelling towards Creeslough to consider alternative routes
Some people remain ‘trapped’ in the rubble, according to Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty
The NAS wrote: ‘A number of ambulances are attending the scene of a serious incident at a service station in Creeslough, Co Donegal.
‘Please avoid this area at the moment if possible.’
The Irish Coast Guard added at around 5pm: ‘The Irish Coast Guard is assisting emergency services at the scene of a major incident in Creeslough Co. Donegal.
‘The Sligo based Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue 118 and the Mulroy Coast Guard team are assisting the operation.’
Paramount+ today debuted a new teaser for the third and final season of its hit original series Star Trek: Pickard at today’s “Star Trek” universe panel at New York Comic Con. The final season premieres on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023, exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., with new episodes of the 10-episode-long season available to stream weekly on Thursdays.
Courtesy of Paramount+
The panel also announced that Tony Award winner Amanda Plummer (“The Fisher King,” “Pulp Fiction”) joined the cast in a recurring role as Vadic, the mysterious alien captain of the Shrike, a warship that has set its sights on Jean-Luc Picard and his old crewmates from his days on the Enterprise. Mica Burton (“Critical Role,” “Vampire: The Masquerade: L.A. by Night”) and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut (“Cruel Summer”) also joined in recurring roles. Ensign Sidney La Forge is played by Sharpe Chestnut and is the eldest daughter of Geordi La Forge and helmsman of the U.S.S. Titan. Ensign Alandra La Forge is played by Mica Burton, Geordi La Forge’s youngest daughter who works alongside her father.
In addition, fans learned during today’s New York Comic Con panel that Brent Spiner’s character this season is named Lore, and they will also see the return of Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
This year’s Star Trek: Pickard panel at New York Comic Con featured series star Patrick Stewart and cast members LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Brent Spiner, as well as executive producers Alex Kurztman, Terry Matalas and Rod Roddenberry. Josh Horowitz, MTV host and host of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, served as the panel moderator.
Star Trek: Pickard features Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and follows this iconic character into the next chapter of his life. LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan and Michelle Hurd star alongside Patrick Stewart in the third and final season of the hit Paramount+ original series.
Check out teaser below:
The series is produced by CBS Studios in association with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. For season three, Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Patrick Stewart, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth, Doug Aarniokoski and Dylan Massin serve as executive producers. Terry Matalas serves as showrunner for season three.
Seasons one and two of Star Trek: Pickardare currently streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.
Star Trek: Pickard streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed concurrently by Paramount Global Content Distribution on Amazon Prime Video in more than 200 countries and territories, and in Canada it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and streams on Crave.
A new “Hellraiser” has risen from the depths (or beamed in from another dimension). And the movie, now streaming on Hulu, adds considerably to the already established “Hellraiser” lore (originated by Clive Barker’s novella, which Barker himself adapted into the first movie) while also making it easily, um, digestible for those who are new to the franchise. Listen, you’re going to have to learn about BDSM space weirdos at some point; why not now?
This new “Hellraiser” concerns a young woman named Riley (Odessa A’zion), a recovering addict who is desperate to get clean. Her boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey), who she met in the program, offers her a way to get some easy cash: break into a rich guy’s storage unit and steal his stuff. Only instead of stuff they find a single item: a mysterious puzzle box fans of the franchise will quickly identify as The Lament Configuration. As her journey continues, she becomes targeted by the Cenobites, a gang of interdimensional demons with a thirst for pain, led by The Priest aka Pinhead (Jamie Clayton). That’s never good a thing.
As with any “Hellraiser” entry, there are some very big questions that demand exploration. And we will attempt to answer those questions here, with a little help from “Hellraiser” director David Bruckner.
Major spoilers for “Hellraiser” follow, if you haven’t watched it yet, turn back now.
Who did they steal from?
In this “Hellraiser,” the box belongs to a businessman named Roland Voight. In the movie’s opening sequence, we see him con a young man into going into his gallery and picking up the box. A small blade pops out and cuts him, cuing the Cenobites to come collect their soul. It’s wonderfully effective. It’s Voight’s storage facility that they break into. He’s presumed dead or missing. And once they take the box, the whole thing starts again. But is Voight really gone? Or is just waiting to make his grand entrance?
How does Riley elude the Cenobites?
Odessa A’zion as Riley in Spyglass Media Group’s “Hellraiser”, exclusively on Hulu.
One of the more inventive aspects of this “Hellraiser” is watching Riley continually come under fire of the Cenobites (and then weasel her way out of it). She somehow survives until the end, making sure others end up paying the ultimate price. Not only does this lead to many great, gruesome set pieces but it also works well for the underlying addiction metaphor – these are the people you hurt because of your addiction. (Granted, no smackhead has ever been responsible for sending several of their friends to a nightmarish hell dimension. But maybe it could happen!)
Finally, she and her friends make their way to Voight’s mansion, where they attempt to complete the puzzle and get out alive. His mansion is ornate and very much looks like the box. (At one point, the Cenobites spaceship, for lack of a better term, comes down just beyond the mansion. It’s striking.) When Riley completes the configuration, the Priest asks her what she wants in return. Any earthly – or otherworldly – treasure is at her command. Instead, she wants nothing, content to live in the pain and chaos she caused others. That’s growth. That’s making amends. That’s part of what makes the movie so special.
What about Voight?
Ah yes, Voight. Because if you’re a monied industrialist, you know that you’re up to no good.
Voight returns to the movie towards the third act, emerging from within his weird ass mansion. He’s still alive (surprise!) but hideously disfigured from his encounter with the Cenobites. He’s got this contraption that basically twists his nerves, causing him excruciating pain (big Cronenberg vibes). He hired Trevor (another surprise!) to get the box and complete the steps in order to gain him an audience with the Priest and absolve him from the horrible device. (When the device is near he causes his entire mansion to turn into a trap, in an attempt to keep the demons there.) He actually makes headway with the Priest. She removes the device, allowing him to feel power. But he wants more. “True power” is what he’s after. But given these freaks, that will come at a cost.
There’s a new cenobite on the block
At the very end of the movie, giant chains come crash through the ceiling and suck him up into the spaceship (or maybe transport him to the Cenobite dimension). They rip his flesh off, flaying him alive and piercing his skin. He is transforming, not into a god like he probably assumed, but into another Cenobite. It’s a great ending and a real monkey’s paw scenario for somebody who thought they could make a bargain with such a deranged set of creatures.
We asked Bruckner if Voight was going to be the leader of the Cenobites, if that was where they would grant him power. But as it turns out, nope, he’s just another working class BDSM demon. “I think it is yet another Cenobite gift,” Bruckner explained. “So, if you will, it has its pros and its cons depending on your perspective. But it felt appropriate to end the film on a transformation.” It’s hard imagining it end any other way.
And then it just ends?
Yep!
Bleak!
Well, yes, but also very much in keeping with the “Hellraiser” universe. Pain and pleasure are intertwined and every sword has two edges. It makes sense and is a great, downer ending. We approve!
Paramount Plus’s franchise flagship “Star Trek: Discovery” gives us a first look at Season 5.
“Star Trek: Discovery” has always had a strong presence at New York Comic-Con and 2022 is no exception. The show revealed its first trailer for Season 5, which you can watch below.
At the start of Season 3, “Discovery,” which to that point had been a prequel to “The Original Series” jumped 900 years forward in time to the late 32nd Century, a time when the Federation is a shell of its former self. Seasons 3 and 4 were about the Federation coming back together a bit, with Earth (and its president, Stacey Abrams) rejoining the interstellar coalition when last we saw the show.
Season 5 will continue to explore the 32nd Century, and promises an action-packed adventure, down to the very first image released on “Star Trek Day,” of series lead Sonequa Martin-Green’s Capt. Michael Burnham racing some kind of desert vehicle during a sand storm. The rest of the crew will be back: Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, David Ajala, Blu del Barrio, and also Mary Wiseman who seemed like she might be leaving the series after she departed early in Season 4 to be an instructor at Starfleet Academy.
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The official logline reads: “In Season 5, Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncover a mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well… dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.”
Production is still ongoing on Season 5, which will debut in early 2023. Like the entirety of the show to date, the season is being filmed in Toronto, which has allowed for some happy twists of fate such as Torontonian David Cronenberg appearing in a recurring role in the previous two seasons. The visual palette of the series has expanded dramatically during that time, thanks to the use of an AR wall.
“Discovery” is just one of an expanding roster of “Trek” series on Paramount+. There’s also “Star Trek: Picard,” which will conclude with its third season in early 2023 and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” which is a spinoff of “Discovery” itself. Plus, the animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” and “Star Trek: Prodigy.”
Yoko Ono took flight. In August 1974, she touched down in Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to mobs of fans and a constellation of flashbulbs. She was arriving to perform a run of six shows ostensibly pegged to her most recent album, 1973’s uncharacteristically slight Feeling the Space. But the nine months since its release had been a time of upheaval and artistic renewal. Separated from her husband, John Lennon, who had eloped—with her blessing—with a lover, she quietly recorded a new album, A Story, with a blistering centerpiece titled “Yes, I’m a Witch.” Though the album would remain unreleased until 1992, due to problems at her record label, Apple, Ono had been galvanized by its creation process. “When I wrote the song ‘Yes, I’m a Witch,’ I was ready to scream,” she said in 2007. “I think it was important that I came up with that in 1974. I needed to shout it for the good of my mental health.”
Fifty thousand fans showed up to hear Ono let rip on the opening night of the tour, a live performance at One Step Festival in Koriyama, Fukushima; the recording has now been released for the first time, by Light in the Attic, as Let’s Have a Dream. On stage, Ono banters with the crowd in Japanese before flipping to English to figure out the setlist with her specially assembled Plastic Ono Super Band, which includes the Brecker Brothers and Steve Gadd, the drummer behind the iconic drum fills of Steely Dan’s “Aja.” In the surviving video footage of the performance, she blows kisses to the crowd, struts across the stage in towering platform heels, wiggles her waist, and squats on her haunches while dramatically warbling. As the crowd screams its applause, she stands with arms aloft, like a homecoming Olympian showing off her gold.
On Let’s Have a Dream, “Angry Young Woman” is hardly recognizable from its origins as an earnest message song. Communing with Steve Khan’s intuitive, bluesy guitar, Ono sounds beautifully melodic as she descibes a woman with “three children and two abortions” who rejects mothering for a new life. It’s a remarkable thing to hear a ’70s crowd cheer for a song with such thorny themes; 50 years on, the topic of mothers who reject parenting remains a taboo touched by few. Feeling the Space’s baroque piano and folksy choir always felt like a mismatch for “Woman of Salem,” a parable about the pack-mentality sexism Ono knew all too well. Here she is resplendent and raw, expelling a torrent of female stereotypes as if acid were burning a hole in her throat and the mic were a spittoon. As the song reaches its climax, Ono’s voice curdles. “Help! Help!” she shouts, before her band splinters into carnivalesque disorder, with a flute that flouders like a cartoon bird in a snowstorm. She screams, invoking a murderous mob. “Must kill! Must kill! Must kill!”
Bollywood actress Kajal Aggarwal is quite active on social media and she keeps treating her fans to glimpses of her cute baby boy. The actress was recently spotted by the paparazzi at the Mumbai airport with her husband Gautam Kitchlu and son Neil Kitchlu and the best part – she revealed Neil’s face for the first time at the airport. The Singham actress posed happily with her son for the camera. In the pictures, Neil looks super cute and innocent and is seen resting in his stroller. For the parent’s outfit, mother Kajal donned an ethnic attire and looked pretty while Gautam opted for a basic and casual look.
Reacting to the video shared by a fan page, a user wrote, “Very cute, like his mother Kajal Aggarwal,” while another wrote, “Very nice, Kaju.”
A few days earlier, Kajal shared a picture of herself with her son Neil. Captioning the picture, she wrote, “Double the trouble, twice the fun,” with the hashtag.
Kajal and her husband Gautam Kitchlu welcomed their first child Neil Kitchlu on May 19 this year. The couple has been busy with parental duties ever since.
On the work front, Kajal Aggarwal is getting ready to return to the big screen with Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2. For her character in the film, the diva is also learning new talents such as martial arts and horseback riding. This much-anticipated drama is being directed by filmmaker S Shankar. The sequel to the superstar’s 1996 movie, Indian, is titled Indian 2. The film, which was supposed to go on floors in 2020, was repeatedly postponed owing to a variety of factors. But now, it has been resumed.
The Highlands of Scotland are the perfect backdrop for Andrew Cumming’s prehistoric genre piece The Origin, a survivalist horror that also works as a thoughtful human drama as its core cast of six fight for their lives against a violent, unseen creature. The Origin had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
The setting is 45,000 years ago, and a landing party led by Adem (Chuku Modu) washes up at the shore of what they hope to be the promised land. It is, however, a false dawn: the soil is barren, and the group needs to stay on the move if they are to survive. But as they do so, the terrain becomes more forbidding — wide open plains and claustrophobic forests —and something terrifying is on their trail, making nightfall especially tense.
There are plenty of parallels with other movies, notably John Carpenter’s The Thing, but The Origin goes much further in its world-building, having its characters speak a strange guttural language (actually a mix of Arabic and Basque). It’s a bold choice, and, like DP Ben Fordesman’s atmospheric but often very low-lit lensing, something that lends itself to a richer and more immersive experience in a big, dark cinema than anything a streaming platform could offer. In this respect, the storytelling, for the most part, is incredibly visual, and a lot of heavy lifting is done by the spaces beyond the frame, which is a constant reminder of how utterly alone and vulnerable these people are. The unsettling sound mix is crucial too, working in tandem with Adam Janota Bzowki’s primal but subtle score to bring both tension and some much-needed relief.
The cast, though their safety is not assured and only one will prevail as what could be called the film’s only true protagonist, is a genuine ensemble, and the diversity of the casting helps establish the fractious state of the group to begin with: the headstrong Adem, his more empathetic brother Geirr (Kit Young), his son Heron (Luna Mwezi) and pregnant “wife” Avé (Iola Evans). Rounding out the six are two foragers, the elder Odal (Arno Lüning) and teenage Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green), outsiders who come to embody the film’s slowly emerging central theme of community and otherness.
The reveal, when it comes, is more a slowly dawning realization than a Shyamalan doozy (no, it’s not the present day or an apocalyptic future), with plenty of clues along the way that pay back close attention. It may not be especially subtle in that respect, but The Origin has a lot to say about man’s slow-moving and ongoing evolution, reflecting all the myriad divisions in today’s world, from Brexit to Biden’s America, and being especially evocative of a world coming out of lockdown (the film was shot at the height of Covid restrictions, and a sense of isolation shows). In that sense, it’s a cautionary tale as old as time — or as the preternaturally wise Odal puts it, “The danger in bringing light to a dark place is that you might find out what lives in the darkness.”
The anticipated film, Teen Wolf, which members of the original cast, will drop Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023 on Paramount+ in the U.S. and Canada, it was announced Friday at New York Comic Con. It will be available on the streaming service the following day on Friday, Jan. 27 in the U.K., Latin America and Australia.
Release dates for other international territories will be announced later.
Courtesy of Getty/ReedPop
During the panel, which included original stars Tyler Posey, Holland Roden, Shelley Hennig, Crystal Reed, Colton Haynes, Vince Mattis, Khylin Rhambo, Amy Workman and Dylan Sprayberry, the first official clip from Teen Wolf: The Movie was released.
The movie kicks off when a full moon rises in Beacon Hills and with it a terrifying evil has emerged. The wolves are howling once again, calling for the return of banshees, were coyotes, hellhounds, kitsunes and every other shapeshifter in the night. But only a werewolf like Scott McCall (Posey), no longer a teenager yet still an alpha, can both gather new allies and reunite trusted friends to fight back against what could be the most powerful and deadliest enemy they’ve ever faced.
Tyler Hoechlin, Orny Adams, Linden Ashby, JR Bourne, Seth Gilliam, Ryan Kelley, Melissa Ponzio, Ian Bohen and Nobi Nakanishi also star.
Watch the clip from Teen Wolf: The Movie below:
Additionally, the upcoming series, Wolf Pack, has set a release date on Paramount+, announcing during its panel Friday it will also launch Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023 in the U.S. and Canada. Like the Teen Wolf movie, it will be available the following day in the U.K. Latin America and Australia.
The official teaser trailer teeing up the new drama also debuted at New York Comic Con during the panel, which featured Sarah Michelle Gellar, Rodrigo Santoro, Armani Jackson, Bella Shepard, Chloe Rose Robertson and Tyler Lawrence Gray.
Courtesy of Getty/ReedPop
Based on the book series by Edo Van Belkom, Wolf Pack follows a teenage boy and girl whose lives are changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature and drives it to attack a highway traffic jam beneath the burning hills. Wounded in the chaos, the boy and girl are inexplicably drawn to each other and to two other teenagers who were adopted sixteen years earlier by a park ranger after another mysterious wildfire. As the full moon rises, all four teens come together to unravel the secret that connects them — the bite and blood of a werewolf.
As part of their NYCC appearance, new cast members were also announced: Bailey Stender, Chase Liefeld, Hollie Bahar, Lanny Joon, Rio Mangini, Stella Smith, Zack Nelson and James Martinez have all joined in recurring roles.
Amy Pietz, Bria Brimmer, John L. Adams and Sean Philip Glasgow were also revealed as new additions.
“Ghosted” – Danny and Baez investigate after a vicious attack leaves their mutual friend, Maggie Gibson (Callie Thorne), hospitalized. Also, Frank and the Dream Team debate the appropriate memorial protocol for a former police commissioner with a questionable professional legacy; Jamie begs Erin to release a perp who can lead him to a powerful criminal; and Eddie’s car is vandalized by her partner Badillo’s (Ian Quinlan) ex-girlfriend, on BLUE BLOODS, Friday, Oct. 21 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Callie Thorne returns as Maggie Gibson, a psychic medium and Danny and Baez’s mutual friend.
REGULAR CAST:
Tom Selleck (Frank Reagan)
Donnie Wahlberg (Danny Reagan)
Bridget Moynahan (Erin Reagan)
Will Estes (Jamie Reagan)
Len Cariou (Henry Reagan)
Marisa Ramirez (Det. Maria Baez)
Vanessa Ray (Officer Eddie Janko)
RECURRING CAST:
Abigail Hawk (Abigail Baker)
Gregory Jbara (DCPI Garrett Moore)
Robert Clohessy (Lt. Gormley)
Steven Schirripa (Anthony Abetamarco)
Andrew Terraciano (Sean Reagan)
Ian Quinlan (Luis Badillo)
Callie Thorne (Maggie Gibson)
GUEST CAST:
Taylor Shurte (Sheree Shea)
Dre Davis (Diane Tobin)
Alphonso Walker, Jr. (Gilbert)
Jordan Baker (Julia Conners)
Danny Fischer (Arthur Bava)
Braxton Fannin (Ashton Hesby)
William Ragsdale (Dean Stafford)
Ian Lyons (Ken Parker)
Jason Martin (Vince Tackett)
Ian Hersey (Ashton’s Lawyer)
Dani Martineck (Officer Hoffman)
Brian Dives (Security Guard)
Joan Frances Twiss (Vendor Lady)
Kaybri Wolff (Co-Worker)
STORY BY: Daniel Truly & Ashley Zazzarino
WRITTEN BY: Daniel Truly
DIRECTED BY: Jackeline Tejada
Sniffling and choking back tears, CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday delivered an emotional farewell as he signed off on his final primetime show, “Don Lemon Tonight,” before moving to anchor the network’s morning show on Monday.
“I was not always perfect, because no one is perfect,” Lemon said after playing a montage of highlights from his eight-year run on primetime. “There are immense pressures that come with this job and in particular this time slot at 10 o’clock, when people are going to bed. So sometimes all I could do — I am going to be honest with you — is just smile and just get to the commercial break sometimes.”
Lemon, who joined the network in 2006 and gained his primetime show in 2014, acknowledged the pressures of his gig. “Sometimes it was exhausting, because some of the things that we discuss here are so personal and so consuming, all-consuming,” he said. “So I hope I made you proud. And I thank you for tuning in all these years. And I hope that you are going to join me in the morning.”
After delivering a simple “good night,” Lemon said, “I’m going to leave and I am going to go upstairs.” He then stood up from his desk and walked away, waving and delivering a high-pitched, “Bye.” As the show’s credits rolled, he could then be seen walking up a staircase at the back of the set, sniffling and sighing as his shoes clomped on the metal stairs.
On Monday, Lemon will join Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins to co-anchor CNN’s morning show. Alisyn Camerota and Laura Coates will co-anchor Lemon’s primetime slot, from 10 p.m. to midnight ET. In addition, Jake Tapper will take over the 9 p.m. time slot that has seen a rotating crew of hosts since Chris Cuomo’s firing last December.
Who Invited Charlie is set to premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) on October 8th. The film is the story of a troubled family hiding out in the Hamptons whose bubble is popped when a Bloody Mary-swilling, pot-smoking ‘Charlie’ from their past shows up unannounced bringing with him a lifetime of hurt that might actually heal them all.
“Who Invited Charlie?” stars Jordana Brewster (“Fast & Furious 7”) as Rosie, Adam Pally (“Happy Endings”) as Charlie, Reid Scott (“Veep”) as Phil and Dylan Penn (“Flag Day”) as Jess. Xosha Roquemore (“The Mindy Project”) and Peter Dager round out the cast. Nicholas Schutt (“Outer Banks”) wrote the screenplay.
Courtesy of Scott Miller
In the film, Scott plays, Phil Schreiber, a self-involved hedge fund manager escapes to the Hamptons with his wife and son at the beginning of the pandemic. Making an already fraught situation worse is the surprise arrival of Phil’s college roommate Charlie (Adam Pally). An exemplar of Falstaffian excess, Charlie is also the keeper of some of Phil’s darkest secrets. To make matters worse for Phil, his wife and son love Charlie. As Charlie makes himself at home — secrets are revealed that threaten to do more harm than the virus they’re all hiding out from.
Jason Dubin (“The Babysitters”), Perry Street Films and Nicholas Schutt produce. David Frankel (“Devil Wears Prada”) is exec. producing alongside Jordana Brewster and Adam Pally. Manrique and Scott are producing.
Brewster is repped by Liz York at Principal Entertainment and Tracy Brennan and Jamie Feld at CAA; Pally is repped by 3 Arts Entertainment and UTA; Scott is repped by Gersh, Impression Entertainment and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher; Penn is repped by Heather Nunn at Anonymous Content and Tracy Brennan and Andrea Weintraub at CAA; Schutt is repped by LIT Entertainment, Verve and attorney, Stephen Clark; Roquemore is repped by UTA and Authentic Talent; Dager is represented by Namoff & Company and The Gersh Agency.
Reginald The Vampire star Jacob BatalonPhoto: VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images
Jacob Batalon and the rest of the cast of SYFY’s new horror-comedy Reginald The Vampiretook the stage at New York Comic Con today, showing off a teaser for the series—which premiered earlier this week—and talking about the twists and turns the audience can expect from the rest of its (surprisingly gory!) first season.
The most interesting stuff, not surprisingly, came from Batalon himself, with the Spider-Man co-star discussing the ways his title character’s nice guy image—a pretty obvious extension of the work that Batalon has been dong for years at this point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—might change as the show goes on. (This is, after all, a series in which its main character has a compulsion to eat people.) Among other things, he joked about how audience feelings for the character might change after “Episode 9,” while also noting that the character “does do things in his own weird, conventional way. He’s definitely going to figure out how to hunt because hunting is not his gig.”
Meanwhile, actor Savannah Basley talked about her character Angela, an old accomplice of Mandela Van Peebles’ Maurice, the nice-guy vampire who serves as Reginald’s mentor. “I think Angela likes to think that she’s very intelligent and a really good manipulator,” Basley noted of the character, who was said to harken back to a darker past of the now-friendly Maurice. “So I think she believes that she’s going to be able to just go into the situation and just handle it and if not handle it, manipulate the situation.”
Series showrunner Harley Peyton also talked about trying to avoid the standard vampire clichés, a trait inherited from the original Fat Vampire books on which the show is based. “We don’t want that to be magical,” director Jeremiah Chechik said about the show’s treatment of the undead. “They walk and talk among us.”
Ultimately, though, Peyton made it clear why Reginald is a different sort of vampire show from the typical ilk: “I can say in two words, and that’s Jacob Batalon.”
About: An examination of Eli Timoner’s life and intentional death and his family’s emotional turmoil as they grapple with his decision to end his own life.
A Cambridge, Ont., man is facing charges in connection with a slew of break and enters in the city.
Investigators with the Waterloo Regional Police Service’s Break, Enter, and Vehicle Theft Team say there were 10 occurrences between Sept. 16th and Oct. 4th.
All the break-ins happened on commercial properties.
The investigation led police to a 32-year-old man. He was arrested and charged with:
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Ten counts of break, enter, and commit
Possession of break-in instruments
Disguise with intent
Failing to comply with release order
The accused was held for a bail hearing.
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Police say the investigation remains ongoing and anticipate additional charges being laid as a result.
Anyone with information on this is asked to contact Waterloo Regional Police at 519-570-9777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
In a joint statement Friday, the two unions said the layoffs represented about 30% of their members. “These aren’t small cuts, they are massive restructurings,” the Gimlet and Parcast unions said. Some Spotify employees were given as little as an hour to close out their work, according to the unions. The statement does not allege that the company violated the terms of its agreements with the unions.
“Yesterday, Spotify chose to create chaos instead of treating employees with the dignity and respect they deserve,” said the Gimlet and Parcast unions, both of which are affiliated with the Writers Guild of America East. “The fact that Spotify chose to handle these cuts in this way shows their disregard for both their employees and their audiences.”
Spotify declined to comment about the show cancellations and the layoffs.
On Thursday, the company informed the teams working on 11 shows that the programs were being wound down. About 5% of Spotify’s total podcast headcount was affected, with staff members either laid off or reassigned, according to a company source.
According to the Gimlet and Parcast unions, the staffers were told their shows were getting axed because of low listenership numbers. However, the unions alleged, “decisions Spotify leadership made directly contributed to these low numbers,” by making the Gimlet and Parcast shows exclusive to Spotify after the studios were acquired in 2019 — which, they claimed, resulted in some losing up to three-fourths of their audiences. In addition, the unions asserted, the shows “languished without marketing support” and “teams were not given clear audience goals to meet.”
The shows being canceled are: from Gimlet, “How to Save a Planet,” “Crime Show” and “Every Little Thing”; and from Parcast, “Medical Murders,” “Female Criminals,” “Crimes of Passion,” “Dictators,” “Mythology,” “Haunted Places,” “Urban Legends” and “Horoscope Today.” Some of the shows will continue to be produced for the next month or so, and “Horoscope Today” is set to end in Q2 2023.
YouTube historically hasn’t been a good place to turn for information about health. Inaccurate or misleading videos are everywhere, researchhasshown, and the algorithm can push those videos to more people.
To shift that trajectory and give people more reliable health information, the platform launched a team last year to build relationships with medical groups, with the ultimate goal of adding videos with reliable health info to the platform. The team is led by Garth Graham, a cardiologist and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health. He’s the director and global head of healthcare and public health partnerships at YouTube.
As another arm of those efforts, the YouTube health team last month launched a Personal Stories shelf, which surfaces relevant videos of people talking about their own experiences with a health condition someone might be searching for. To start, they’re featuring stories on cancer, anxiety, and depression. The feature was inspired by YouTube employee Maya Amoils, who died from ovarian cancer last year. After her diagnosis, she sought out connections with other people who were going through similar experiences.
“That kind of inspired a lot of this work, where we really were kind of trying to think through how you learn from other people’s personal journeys,” Graham told The Verge.
The Verge spoke with Graham about the new feature, the value of patient stories, and his approach to health misinformation on YouTube.
The following has been lightly edited for clarity.
When you’re thinking about misinformation on YouTube, you have two issues — how to combat misinformation and how to surface good information. How do you balance those?
I see them as two edges of the coin. I think that we need to be tackling medical misinformation by either removing or reducing what’s seen. But people still have questions and look for answers. So you have to make sure you have an adequate supply of information that allows people to engage appropriately.
I would say that that’s a lesson that healthcare learned at the 10,000-foot level with COVID-19. People have questions, and they want answers. They can’t get in touch with their local health authorities to ask them all the different questions they have, or they can’t get in touch with their clinician on a Tuesday night when they’re wondering, “What should I do next?”
How does the personal stories shelf connect with YouTube’s other work on improving what health information is available to people?
There are two kinds of tools and strategies that we’ve been employing here. One strategy before was to link people to information from your traditional evidence-based science services. Your hospital, your CDC, your government authorities.
People also want to hear about other journeys that individuals have had with particular diseases. The idea was to bring an authentic lived experience relevant to a specific physical or mental health condition that people search for. We’ve leaned more towards those kinds of experiences that, although authentic, help promote health information.
“People also want to hear about other journeys that individuals have had with particular diseases.”
Personal experiences can be comforting, but what works for one person might not work for everyone, and people sometimes pursue types of care that aren’t evidence-based. How do you vet personal stories to make sure they’re not spreading disinformation?
We have a team of clinicians. And we first start by making sure that it isn’t outside of the realm of what’s traditional evidence-based health information. Our basis is wanting to be sure that everything was clinically validated and screening for digital misinformation. But beyond that, we want to allow all the variations of kinds of experiences that people would have from a health perspective.
How are these types of stories different from other types of health information, and what have you learned from engaging with them?
People love to tell their story, and people love to listen to stories. Speaking as a clinician, we tend to have these conversations with patients about very important diagnoses, and then you leave and you go on to the next patient. And they’re left with all of these questions and emotions.
We talk about health literacy in a very unidirectional way: How do I produce information that patients understand? What’s the reading level? This is a different kind of communication that I think it takes into account, you know, age, demographics, gender, culture, but then it goes deeper to help people understand the experience with a disease.
As a clinician, is it more concerning if someone doesn’t have any information or if they have misinformation?
I see them both with equal concern. Misinformation leads patients down the wrong path. But I have also seen patients who have not received the information that would help them make the right decision and so don’t make the right decision. A lot of the time, we assume that if a person has done something wrong, there’s some negative intent on that. But a lot of times, people just aren’t empowered.
“A lot of times, people just aren’t empowered.”
How is combating health information similar or different to combating other types of misinformation on YouTube?
There are things that can cause harm. There are decisions and information that people can engage in that can cause harm. There are particular stakes at play that we take seriously.
And on the health side, combating misinformation is not just about removal because people still have questions. It has to do with engagement — how do you make good information engaging?
Rolling solo! Clayton Echard opened up about dating life after his split from Susie Evans — and the former Bachelor isn’t quite ready to find love again.
“I’m not looking to date right now. I’m not mentally healed,” Echard, 29, told E! News in an interview published on Thursday, October 6. “I can’t even fathom seeing anybody in that light right now. And so, I think I’m really just taking this time to focus on myself. … If I’m not healed, then I can’t allow anybody else to be a part of my life.”
The Bachelor Nation star and Evans, 29, dated for six months before calling it quits in September. The pair met during season 26 of The Bachelor and sparked a romance until the Virginia native revealed that she wasn’t comfortable with the former football star being intimate with the remaining two contestants, Rachel Recchia and Gabby Windey.
After exiting the ABC series, Evans then returned during the two-part finale, but turned down Echard’s final rose, choosing to go home solo instead.
On the After the Final Rose special, the duo announced they had rekindled their relationship. “I loved him as a person before I ever fell in love with him,” Evans told host Jesse Palmer at the time.
Earlier this month, Evans and Echard revealed they would be moving to separate states with the hope of making a long-distance relationship work. Shortly after relocating, however, the twosome announced they had called it quits.
The retired athlete shared on Thursday that he and the beauty queen have “checked in” with each other after their breakup last month, noting that the twosome have a unique understanding of each other after their shared experience on The Bachelor.
“At the end of the day, we know what we’ve went through is different than what anyone else has experienced. So, we’ll probably be one of the only few people to really understand each other in that sense,” he said, adding that the two remain “on good terms” despite calling it quits.
“We obviously will always respect and have a love for each other, and I think that’s a really great place to be where it’s not a hostile ex situation,” Echard explained. “It’s more of like we’re very loving and caring, but we just want what’s best for each other and who knows what that looks like?”
While Echard told E! News that he doesn’t know if he could place his “trust and whole identity” in someone else’s hands again, the pair admitted that a reconciliation is still possible during an emotional conversation on the “Off the Vine” podcast earlier this week.
Mila Kunis has always liked emotions and has never been afraid of expressing them. In fact, she relishes the opportunity to play someone that’s broken — that’s exactly what her role called for in the Netflix thriller “Luckiest Girl Alive.”
The film is an adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s bestselling 2015 novel about a young woman named Ani who reinvents herself with a perfectly crafted New York City life after experiencing a series of traumatic events in her teenage years.
“I love playing somebody who is so desperate with wanting to be something that they’re not,” the Ukrainian-born actress says of playing Ani during a one-on-one virtual interview.
The film deals with two sensitive subject matters: sexual assault and gun violence. While the story is a work of fiction, Knoll revealed she was a rape survivor in a 2016 essay in the newsletter “Lenny Letter,”a year after the book’s release.
When it came to writing the screenplay for the film, Knoll felt strongly about being the one to adapt the novel into a movie. She wrote and rewrote the script for seven years and said that it was “definitely challenging.”
“I think I’m a little bit in shock that it’s actually happening and we’re actually here. It’s been such a long road. I’m stealing myself a little bit. Because although it’s so exciting to think about people seeing this thing that we’ve been working on for so long, I don’t know how everyone’s going to feel about it. There’s some provocative conversations that I think this story could spark. I think that makes for an exciting story and exciting character, ” Knoll said during a virtual interview.
Kunis, 39, has a clear sense of the kinds of characters she wishes to embody — someone far removed from herself, without ever judging them.
“I think that anytime you work on a character, or you do any film, whether it’s a drama or comedy or horror, doesn’t matter what the genre is, people are people, and monsters are monsters and you can’t be judgmental. The worst thing you can do as an actor is judge your character for doing something. So the first thing that you want to do is find the justifications for all of their actions because so rarely will they actually align with yours as a person,” she said.
For Chiara Aurelia, who plays the young Ani, giving agency to the character was important because she knew the story was a difficult and challenging one.
“I do think something that’s really important to highlight is the fact that the impact is not just in the moment. I think something that our story is trying to tell is that it’s the aftermath, the shame, the guilt, the feelings of confusion and not understanding, and especially for young women who don’t know what happened, and they don’t understand how to feel about it. I think that the impact of trauma, it stays in your body, and it can affect you for a long time,” she said.
Kunis stressed that the movie also differentiates between being a victim and a survivor. “I think that as a society we want everyone to be a victim, because sometimes it’s easier to put them in a box that way, and then we know how to treat that person versus a survivor. That’s a much harder person to try to acknowledge. So I think it’s making sure that we allow the person to identify themselves however they want, and not to project onto them how it is that we’re comfortable dealing with them.”
The actress credits director Mike Barker, known for his work on the groundbreaking series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” where he handled the delicacy and nuance of sexual assaults on the show.
“There are some directors that look at scenes like that and they just beat them down. They do them over and over again. And it’s exhausting and by the end of the day, you’re just this mess of a tissue. Barker is so great about just moving it forward,” she said.
Barker said, “I think the most important thing is that this is a real journey of a woman recovering from trauma. It was very much Jessica’s story so I wanted to make sure Jessica was close to me all the way through this.”
Kunis not only stars in the film but is also a producer and was instrumental in figuring out the ending of the film.
“I think what surprised me is how she really helped creatively as a producer. We had been kind of stuck in the third act. We weren’t quite landing the ending at the time we first sent her the script and she picked up on that,” Knoll said,
Kunis is acutely aware of how to toe the line on such a heavy subject matter. “It’s whether I ask questions, know when to ask questions, know when not to ask questions, know when to take creative liberty, know when not to take creative liberty,” she said.
Aurelia hopes that “people would be impacted by her journey and be able to follow the film and enjoy watching it, but also see the kind of strength and empowerment that hopefully is going to spread to a lot of women out there.”
“Luckiest Girl Alive” streams on Netflix
Marriska Fernandes is a Toronto-based entertainment reporter and film critic. She is a freelance contributor for the Star’s Culture section. Follow her on Twitter: @marrs_fers
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In a time of war, laughter — even of the wryest kind — can feel like an unpardonable luxury. And if Ukrainian director Antonio Lukich’s delightfully droll “Luxembourg Luxembourg” were even a little more flippant, and didn’t cut its comedic antics with an equal dose of melancholic wisdom, perhaps there would be some guilt attached to enjoying it so much. But with his second feature, an expansion of ambition after his wonkily wistful debut, “My Thoughts Are Silent,” Lukich hasn’t just made a slice of much-needed escapism. In the sincerity of its sentimentality and its humane, universal observations around absent fathers, errant sons and estranged brothers, the movie not only earns us the right to laugh during a period of suffering and conflict, it makes sharing in the warmth of its sweet-natured humor seem like a vital, revivifying act of resistance.
There’s a scuzzy-Scorsese vibe to the film’s propulsive, boisterous ’90s-set opening as Kolya and Vasya (Adrian and Damian Suleiman), identical twin boys getting into trouble the way boys do, scramble around the train yards of Lubny, the central Ukrainian city they call home. As nostalgically narrated by an older if little wiser Kolya, the events of this particular day are instructive as to the boys’ relationship. When the freight train they’re kicking about in unexpectedly begins to move, Vasya jumps off just in time, while the more fearful Kolya clings to the boxcar helplessly, watching his brother recede to a forlorn far-off figure on the tracks. Kolya will be rescued in amusingly OTT style by his gangster father stopping the train at gunpoint while Boney M’s “Daddy Cool” blasts over the soundtrack. But the differences in the boys’ natures is set. Vasya is seemingly destined for an easier life because as narrator Kolya observes mournfully, “They say that when a son looks like his mother, he is born happy. Even though we are twins, Vasya looks like our mother; I look like our dad.”
Twenty years later, with their father long gone from the scene and now mostly the subject of Kolya’s hero-worship mythologizing, the schism between Kolya and Vasya (played as adults with lovely hangdog panache by Ukrainian rappers Amil and Ramil Nasirov) has only grown wider. Kolya is a scrappy, low-level drug dealer whose unreliability and surly demeanor at his day job as a bus driver gets him demoted to the “worst” route, used almost exclusively by pensioners — and he only avoids being fired altogether through the forbearance of the stepfather/boss he despises. Vasya, meanwhile, is in law enforcement, hopeful of a promotion and married to pretty if spoiled Masha (Karina Cherchevych), who has just had the couple’s first child. Each brother seems embarrassed by the other, which is perhaps why they rarely talk anymore. But then Kolya gets a phone call from a consulate official to tell him that their father, whom Kolya mostly, adoringly, remembers as an imposing silhouette or a tattooed hand on a steering wheel, is dying in a hospital in Luxembourg. Some kind of reluctant reunion is surely in the cards.
But one of the welcome eccentricities of Lukich’s film is that it takes its time getting there, where a more schematic version of this story would have the brothers’ bickering and bonding be the whole thrust of the plot. Lukich’s screenplay is partially inspired by his own experience of parental absence, and perhaps that’s why it is as much invested in establishing the brothers’ separate lives in Lubny — where their outlooks are oppositional yet equally shaped by their dad’s abandonment — as it is with effecting some sort of genre-mandated reconciliation. From this more generous, character-focused perspective, a lot of the film’s comedy emerges. DP Misha Lubarsky’s deadpan framing gives the Nasirov brothers the look of silent-comedy stonefaces and makes witty little sight gags out of the slightest moments: Vasya, failing a lie detector test when he’s asked about his criminal connections; Kolya, suspended in a swimming pool in a spinal-corrective brace, or stacking books up on a chair to compensate for his short stature when getting a passport photo taken.
This delayed-gratification approach also means we get to see how Kolya is perhaps not all bad, especially through his thawing relationship with Larysa Petrivna (a great, irascible turn from the late Lyudmyla Sachenko), the elderly bus passenger he injures through negligence and then must work for to pay off the debt. And as we learn of Vasya’s difficult relationship with his wealthy in-laws, and the condescension of his bosses at work, it appears his reputation for having his act together might be just as shakily founded as Kolya’s for being an irredeemable screw-up. So when in the final third, the brothers finally embark on their road trip to Luxembourg (a country chosen, one suspects, because like the boys’ father, it remains something of a mystery to outsiders, defined mostly in the popular imagination as a kind of landlocked limbo between better-known neighbors), the payoff is subtle but surprisingly heartfelt. “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” can by no stretch be read as a commentary on Ukraine’s current, bitter struggle for survival. But it is a beautifully modulated, funny and compassionate product of an irreverence that is just as much part of the national character as its resilience in the face of adversity and as such, a gentle reminder — not of the fight but of what’s worth fighting for.
In the interview that ran Friday, he said that the American left is responsible for “full-on communism” that leads to the “general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil.”
He said, “[The relationship with my daughter] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others. Can’t win them all.”
As several media outlets reported at the time, the 18-year-old, whose mother is author Justine Wilson, filed a petition for a name change in April in which she stated, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
The Tesla and SpaceX founder announced in May that he is now a Republican and has since shared anti-trans messages, such as “we are simultaneously being told that gender differences do not exist and that genders are so profoundly different that irreversible surgery is the only option.”
In 2020, he drew criticism for tweeting “pronouns suck.” His partner at the time, Grimes, who identifies as gender neutral, asked him to turn off his phone as they “cannot support hate.”
Later that year, Musk tweeted, “I absolutely support trans [people], but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” However, when news of the name change petition surfaced in June, Musk used his daughter’s preferred pronouns when he told the The Daily Beast: “She does not want to be a public figure. I think it is important to defend her right to privacy.”
Musk has five children with ex-wife Wilson and shares a 2-year-old with Grimes. In March, the singer confirmed to Vanity Fair they had welcomed their second child, Exa Dark Sideræl. In July, Business Insider reported that in November 2021, he had twins with Shivon Ellis, an executive at Musk’s neurotech company Neuralink.
The 2022 Golden Trailer Awards, honoring the best in Hollywood movie and TV/streaming series previews, has given its Best of Show trophy to Paramount Pictures’ Top Gun: Maverick.
Tom Cruise’s Maverick was also awarded for best summer 2022 blockbuster trailer and best action trailer. The Golden Fleece prize, given as recognition for making a bad movie more appealing, went to Warner Bros.’The Matrix: Resurrections, which also took the best movie action poster prize.
CODA and Apple TV+, having made history when the film captured best picture at the Academy Awards, earned the best music award and the best drama TV commercial, while the best drama trailer prize went to the King Richard teaser from Warner Bros.
The best trailer for a family animation movie was picked up by A24’s Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, and the best comedy trailer went to Lionsgate Films’ The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which stars Nicolas Cage.
Other prizewinners included trailers for Netflix’s The Adam Project, Universal Pictures’ Nope and Neon’s indie release Pig. The live awards show was held in Los Angeles at the Orpheum Theatre and was hosted by Henry Cho on Thursday night.
The Golden Trailer Awards recognize the best trailers and marketing for movies and TV/streaming series.
“We are thrilled to offer a huge congratulations to all of this years’ honorees and nominees. Their contributions are imperative to this industry and we appreciate their contributions, as well as everyone who came out to support their creativity,” Evelyn Brady-Watters, a Golden Trailer Awards co-founder along with Monica Brady, said in a statement.
Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Whoopi Goldberg and Zendaya are just some of the stars who appear in Elvis Mitchell’s “Is That Black Enough for You?!?” Netflix documentary.
Mitchell’s doc bows this weekend at the New York Film Festival.
Mitchell, a film critic who has written for LA Weekly and The New York Times takes on the role of writer, director and narrator as he traces the history of Black representation in cinema.
The documentary examines Black cultural achievement in the 1960s and ’70s and debunks the notion that Black cinema in that period only meant Blaxploitation films.
Speaking with Variety, Mitchell says he was inspired by his life experience to make the documentary: “As a Black viewer, I found myself confronted with what wasn’t being voiced about my people, and wondered why the movies were so slow to respond to Black audiences — who were paying good money to see movies — and even social shifts brought about by the civil rights movement.”
Adds Mitchell, “When Black films from the late ’60s and the ’70s come up, they’re dismissed with the term ‘Blaxploitation’. I have nothing against that word, but any era that includes ‘Killer of Sheep’, ‘Lady Sings the Blues’, ‘Blazing Saddles’ and ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm’ can’t be disregarded with that phrase.”
Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher both serve as producers on the documentary, which Mitchell says was 23 years in the making.
At one point, the documentary was going to be a book, but Mitchell says it was “turned down by every publisher you can think of — and probably several you couldn’t — even with an introduction that Toni Morrison offered to write.” However, Soderbergh’s support moved the project along. “He was my DP for the first shoot, the interview with Harry Belafonte, who was always the spine of my argument. Harry was sublime in every single response and radiated such command and fire and thoughtfulness — in his 90s, he’s still a movie star. During that interview, I knew I had a movie: I could see it every time with that potent and seductive voice offering those observations.”
Goldberg, Fishburne, Zendaya and Harry Belafonte are just a few of the names providing commentary on the films and creatives that inspired them.
With the doc coming to Netflix on Nov. 11, Mitchell hopes audiences will dive into the significant artistic achievements — both in film and music — that forced a change in Black cinema. He says, “Black film reintroduced the ideals of glamour and heroism to the medium. And that one failure became a convenient excuse to ignore Black film and give short shrift to Black audiences. I fear that we’re perhaps a couple of box office misfires from such a reversion happening again.”
NBC has greenlit “America’s Got Talent: All-Stars,” a new expansion of the “AGT” franchise. Simon Cowell, who created the franchise, will judge the new series alongside current “AGT” judges Heidi Klum and Howie Mandel, and current host Terry Crews also returns.
“America’s Got Talent: All-Stars” will feature not only winners from previous seasons, but finalists, fan favorites and viral sensations — including some from the different versions of “Got Talent” that air around the world. The contestants will take the stage once again, but this time to compete for the ultimate all-star title.
The series will begin production in October and premiere in 2023 and is co-produced by Fremantle and Syco Entertainment. Cowell serves as executive producer alongside Sam Donnelly and Jason Raff.
The “Got Talent” franchise has been spun off into more than 70 local versions produced across Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, and has aired in 194 territories. The franchise currently holds the Guinness World Records title as the most successful reality television format.
“America’s Got Talent” premiered in 2006. The series wrapped its seventeenth season in September, with auditions for Season 18 currently underway. Along with Cowell, Klum, and Mandel, Sofia Vergara also currently serves as a judge, with past judges including Piers Morgan, David Hasselhoff, Brandy Norwood, Sharon Osbourne, Howard Stern, Mel B, Julianne Hough and Gabrielle Union. Hosts before Crews have included Regis Philbin, Jerry Springer, Nick Cannon and Tyra Banks.
Former Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel is suing TikTok for turning a blind eye to ads using her videos to promote counterfeit products.
In a class action filed Thursday in New York federal court, Frankel accuses the platform of illegally profiting off of failing to snuff out advertising partners who misappropriate the images and voices of influencers to peddle bogus goods. She’s pushing for policy changes to enhance protections around the likeness of creators.
“Unscrupulous companies and individuals have purloined the images, voices, and content of Ms. Frankel and Class Members to sell counterfeit items through the use of TikTok’s platform,” reads the complaint. “Despite demands on TikTok to remove and police this corrupt conduct, TikTok has ignored such demands, and even taken countervailing positions.”
Frankel points to an ad featuring her endorsing a knockoff cardigan. She says that a scammer edited one of her previous posts talking about a different cardigan to make it appear as if she’s promoting the knockoff. When she posted a video warning her followers of the fake ad, TikTok removed her post as “abusive,” according to the suit.
The proposed class action claims that hijacking the likeness, images and voices of well-known influencers, like Frankel, has become commonplace to promote counterfeit products. TikTok is incentivized to illegally neglect the practice, the suit says, because of the advertising revenue it generates.
“Ms. Frankel has invested substantial effort in preserving, protecting, and honing her reputation, and has amassed substantial goodwill and a favorable reputation during her career,” the complaint reads. “By misappropriating Ms. Frankel’s voice and likeness, TikTok has not only traded on Ms. Frankel’s earned goodwill but are also depriving Ms. Frankel of the ability to control her reputation.”
According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers lost $770 million in social media scams in 2021, nearly a quarter of all reported fraud losses in the U.S. and almost triple the $258 million lost in 2020.
The suit challenges the boundaries of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law shielding internet platforms from liability for content hosted by third parties. TikTok will likely turn to Section 230 in defense of its practices, but it’s not a surefire winner — as it has been in the past in cases dealing with alleged liability by social media companies for carrying user posts.
In September 2021, a federal appeals court revived a lawsuit from a TV journalist in Philadelphia suing Facebook over carrying ads using her image to promote erectile dysfunction cure and online dating apps. A federal judge initially dismissed the suit, pointing to Section 230 protections, but the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Karen Hepp that Facebook could’ve misappropriated her right of publicity. The decision revolved around the judges concluding that Hepp’s face could constitute intellectual property.
Section 230 has a carveout for claims dealing with intellectual property so platforms can’t get away, for example, with hosting pirated content.
Like Hepp, Frankel argues that TikTok is hosting content that infringes on her property rights that are subject to protection under right of publicity laws. She claims that the platform is illegally profiting off of her likeness.
“The copyrighted voice files easily satisfy this standard for originality,” the complaint reads. “The various designs were created by Ms. Frankel who has subsequently copyrighted this material.”
TikTok didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“House of the Dragon” co-creator, writer, executive producer and showrunner Ryan Condal has extended his overall deal with HBO. The news comes after the smashing success of the “Game of Thrones” prequel and the early Season 2 renewal it received at the cable network.
Condal, who previously served as co-showrunner alongside director Miguel Sapochnik, had previously struck a deal with HBO in 2020, right after “HOTD” got a straight-to-series order. The series, which was also developed by author George R.R. Martin, was the first to triumph after a slew of failed spinoffs, including a pilot starring Naomi Watts.
“When I picked up that paperback copy of ‘Game of Thrones’ over two decades ago, I wasn’t even sure I would make it as a screenwriter. To find myself here, having co-created a series set in Westeros, is almost beyond thought. I am incredibly fortunate,” Condal said in a statement. “I’m grateful to George R.R. Martin for believing in me and to HBO for placing their trust in me. I’m thrilled to be partnering with HBO to tell the next chapter in the Targaryen saga, and I’m hoping that it’s just one of many to come.”
Francesca Orsi, executive vice president of HBO programming and head of HBO drama series and films, added, “Ryan Condal is a singular talent. He has a magnificent ability to tell stories, build worlds, and shape character, as well as deep passion and respect for George R.R. Martin’s universe. The years we’ve spent collaborating with him on ‘House of the Dragon’ have affirmed our desire to expand our partnership with him now and in years to come.”
Upon its Aug. 21 premiere, “House of the Dragon” garnered the largest audience for a new original series in all of HBO history. The series is now averaging 29 million viewers per episode in the U.S.
EXCLUSIVE: Ryan Condal succeeded where others failed — out of half-dozen or so writers who took a stab at co-creating a Game Of Thrones prequel with author George R.R. Martin, Condal’s House of the Dragon was the one to make it to series at HBO. After a big launch, the fantasy drama was quickly renewed for a second season, and now HBO also has renewed Condal’s overall deal.
Condal originally was signed into an overall deal by HBO in 2020, on the heels of House of the Dragon receiving a straight-to-series order. He co-created the drama with Martin and served as writer, executive producer as well as co-showrunner on Season 1. Condal was named sole showrunner for Season 2.
“Ryan Condal is a singular talent. He has a magnificent ability to tell stories, build worlds, and shape character, as well as deep passion and respect for George R.R. Martin’s universe,” said Francesca Orsi, EVP, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films. “The years we’ve spent collaborating with him on House of the Dragon have affirmed our desire to expand our partnership with him now and in years to come.”
House Of the Dragon debuted in August to strong reviews and the largest audience for a new original series in the history of HBO. The show is now averaging 29 million viewers per episode in the U.S.
“When I picked up that paperback copy of ‘A Game of Thrones’ over two decades ago, I wasn’t even sure I would make it as a screenwriter,” Condal said. “To find myself here, having co-created a series set in Westeros, is almost beyond thought. I am incredibly fortunate. I’m grateful to George R.R. Martin for believing in me and to HBO for placing their trust in me. I’m thrilled to be partnering with HBO to tell the next chapter in the Targaryen saga, and I’m hoping that it’s just one of many to come.”
Condal previously co-created with Carlton Cuse, executive produced, and showran the USA series Colony for three seasons. On the feature side, he recently wrote Neo Earth for Netflix and Brad Peyton, sold a pitch to Lionsgate with Chad Stahelski attached to direct, and wrote Highlander for Stahelski, which is set up at Lionsgate. He previously wrote Hercules starring Dwayne Johnson. Condal is repped by Grandview, WME and McKuin/Frankel/Whitehead.
Prime Video released The Wheel of Time Season One recap and Season Two sneak-peek reel during the Prime Video Presents: The Wheel of Time & The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power panel presentation at New York Comic Con.
The panel also treated fans to exclusive first-looks at Dónal Finn as Mat Cauthon and Ceara Coveney as Elayne Trakand, along with a special welcome video from series star Rosamund Pike.
In July, it was announced at San Diego Comic-Con that the series was picked up for a third season, following the wrap of production on Season Two earlier this year. The first season of The Wheel of Time, which premiered November 19, 2021, is exclusively available on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide. The series is a co-production with Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television.
The Wheel of Time is one of the most popular and enduring fantasy series of all-time, with over 90 million books sold. Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity.
Courtesy of Prime Video
The Wheel of Time also stars Daniel Henney (Criminal Minds) as Lan Mandragoran, Zoë Robins (Power Rangers Ninja Steel) as Nynaeve al’Meara, Madeleine Madden (Dora and the Lost City of Gold) as Egwene al’Vere, Josha Stradowski (Just Friends) as Rand al’Thor, and Marcus Rutherford (Obey) as Perrin Aybara.
Based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling fantasy novels, which have sold more 90 million copies worldwide, The Wheel of Time was adapted for television by executive producer and showrunner Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hemlock Grove). Larry Mondragon and Rick Selvage of Red Eagle Entertainment (Winter Dragon), Ted Field and Mike Weber of Radar Pictures (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Winter Dragon), Darren Lemke (Shazam!, Goosebumps, Winter Dragon), Marigo Kehoe (Outlander, The Crown), Justine Juel Gillmer (The Survivor, Halo), and Sanaa Hamri (Empire, Lovestruck) also serve as executive producers. Rosamund Pike serves as producer and Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson as consulting producers. The Wheel of Time is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television.
Watch Recap of Season One and Sneak Peek of Season Two Below:
Grey’s Anatomy kicked off its new season with a group of new interns, plenty of perfect callbacks to the pilot, and a connection to an iconic character.
Take it from Jesse Eisenberg— just because you played the boy inventor behind one of the internet’s most consequential social media apps doesn’t mean onscreen online dating will be a breeze. In the new trailer for FX’s new series Fleishman Is In Trouble, dizzying camera shots introduce us to a story “about everything.”
Fleishman Is In Trouble follows 41-year-old Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a recent divorcee who takes a dive into the waters of New York City online dating—and actually finds himself a strong swimmer. But just as a fun and flirty summer is supposed to kick off, his ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) disappears, leaving behind their kids but taking with her any and all hints as to why she left.
Fleishman Is In Trouble Official Teaser | Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzy Caplan | FX
Between the return of old friends Libby (Lizzy Caplan) and Seth (Adam Brody), a newfound role as a single dad, and the myriad of possible paramours at his fingertips, Toby has a lot on his plate. But eventually, he realizes if he ever wants to truly figure out where (and why) Rachel went, he’ll have to grapple with what went wrong in their marriage in the first place. As the trailer promises through voiceover, Fleishman Is In Trouble will explore “life, career, marriage, money, friendships, and dissatisfaction—how all those things come together and make you question everything.”
Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who penned the novel Fleishman Is In Trouble is based on, also adapted the series for television. Ackner also executive produces alongside a hefty team, including Little Miss Sunshine’s Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Susannah Grant, Shari Springer Berman, and Robert Pulcini.
Fleishman Is In Trouble will premiere exclusively on Hulu on Thursday, November 17, with subsequent episodes airing Thursdays each week.
Bruna Papandrea is very good at producing hit movies and TV shows about complex women. She tells IndieWire what she wants next: Marvel, more genres, and refusing to be boxed in.
Loving books by and about women has created an extraordinary career for producer Bruna Papandrea, one that includes “Wild,” “Gone Girl,” the Emmy-winning “Big Little Lies,” “The Nightingale,” “The Dry,” “The Undoing,” and “Roar.” Her production company, Made Up Stories, just opened a UK outpost run by Sarah Harvey, which joins offices in Los Angeles and Sydney, in her native Australia.
What none of those offices have, she told IndieWire, are book scouts. Had she used scouts, she said, “I probably would’ve missed ‘Wild’ because [the report] would’ve said, ‘a woman hikes 1,200 miles after the death of the mother’ and I don’t think I would’ve read it.”
Papandrea’s latest production is the long-gestating “Luckiest Girl Alive,” the Netflix adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s bestselling novel of the same name. It stars Mila Kunis as the eponymous “girl,” now the adult survivor of a high school shooting who’s tried to build an unimpeachable life, only to find it all threatened by secrets and lies.
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She’s also finishing the second season of Peacock series “Wolf Like Me” starring Isla Fisher and Josh Gad, plus wrapping production on “Forces of Nature,” a sequel to the Eric Bana-starring Aussie drama “The Dry.” After that it’s Amazon series “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” which is pure Papandrea: Starring Sigourney Weaver, it’s an epic adaptation of the 2018 debut by Australian novelist Holly Ringland.
Ahead, Papandrea unpacks her producing philosophy, shares what gives her hope and enrages her about Hollywood, her dedication to female-driven stories, and why even she’s eager for a Marvel gig.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
IndieWire: When you are reading, is there a little little bulb that goes off, “I think this will be a good adaptation”?
Yeah, it is exactly that. This book [“Luckiest Girl Alive”] is a great example of that, because it is seven years in the making. This is probably one of the longest projects I’ve ever had. This one is so satisfying for me, because we just didn’t give up on it. It’s quite a hard one to pin down, because it is an incredibly commercial book in lots of ways, but obviously it delves into some very complex things.
I remember distinctly back when I read it seven or eight years ago, I remember loving it so much. I remember being conscious of some of the complex issues, but the biggest thing I remember is I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Everyone was talking about it, and women particularly. Yes, it is a very strong feeling, and that thing of not being able to let go is the thing that I listen to. Sometimes it’s really fast and it’s an obvious thing.
I’ve never used a book scout. People assume we do because we adapt so many books, but I always say that if I used a scout, I probably would’ve missed some of my favorite things. I probably would’ve missed “Wild,” because [the scout report] would’ve said “a woman hikes 1,200 miles after the death of the mother,” and I don’t think I would’ve read it. It’s all in the execution, it’s all in the uniqueness of the voice.
How have you learned to message some of the tougher challenges to authors, like some of the changes you feel need to be made to adapt a book to the screen?
We try to be really open and keep that discussion open and upfront with novelists. Obviously, in the case of “Luckiest Girl Alive,” Kate Erbland Jessica [Knoll] was the only person that ever touched the script, which was pretty crazy. We did countless, countless drafts, but that one was always a very easy conversation.
With someone like [“Big Little Lies” author] Liane Moriarty, she very much will give her drafts of the scripts and then there might be things that she says, but I think she understands that the form is different and that the requirements, particularly when you are adapting for TV, are different. I’ve also made things where we went too far in the other direction and the novelist read the script and was like, “No.” The case I’m talking about was a very beloved book and we had to course correct, and that was OK. That was actually a big lesson for me and just always reminded to keep that conversation completely open.
Bruna Papandrea
courtesy of Bruna Papandrea
When you are working with filmmakers or showrunners, I assume it’s the same approach?
You hope so! We do a lot of repeat business, so I hope that’s a good sign but, yes. It’s my preference. I still believe in authorship and having as few voices involved in the process as possible. We have gaffers that we do business with over and over again. For us, it is about just wanting to have a good experience with people and hopefully them coming back. If I don’t have a good experience, I don’t want to go back.
How often are you on set during production?
It shifts, depending on what the project is. With “Luckiest Girl Alive,” [producer] Erik Feig and I split it up. It was right in the middle of [the early part of the] pandemic, and so with this one, I think the shoot was eight weeks. I had to quarantine for four weeks away from my two nine-year-olds and then shoot for four.
For two months on the ground, I got half a shoot. It was really important to me in this case to be there, particularly for some of the more sensitive stuff. I feel like I really wanted to be part of that and offer everyone a lot of support. We do have a great group of people that work with us and that have worked with us for a very long time, and it’s also my job to enable them to be on the ground and do their best work. It’s probably the greatest lesson as I’ve gotten older and the business gotten bigger, is learning where you’re needed most.
“Big Little Lies”
Jennifer Clasen/HBO
What challenges have you faced in your desire to tell female-driven stories? What kind of pushback do you get when you say, “I want to do something like this that has these really tough, very real things in them”?
I always like to answer this: I’m really optimistic. Obviously, I’ve had a lot of success at putting complex women on screen, so I never liked to feel like I’m complaining, but it is hard every time. Every single time it is a challenge, because I think there is still this perception that stories with men at the center can have more shades of darkness and complexity. I think there is this perception that a woman [character], if you’re not sure she’s who she is and you can’t put her in a box so to speak, that it is hard to sell because people aren’t comfortable with it. It is a challenge for that reason.
I think what happens, particularly with a female-driven movie like this one and it’s the reason it took so long to get made, was there’s a handful of women [actors] that age [for the lead role] who they would deem valuable enough in our business to get it made. That’s tough. That’s always the conversation to some extent. I find that kind of slightly disheartening, because some of my favorite movies are [the ones] where stars got made.
Speaking of: I’m wearing a sweatshirt for “The Worst Person in the World.”
Yeah, yeah, exactly! I remember seeing that movie last year and thinking it was just such a breath of fresh air. It was, by far, my favorite movie of that year. I think in some ways you can do that. I’m actually able to do that more in Australia in some ways, but there is still an enormous double standard of putting women’s stories at the center. I become a little enraged at times when I see how it is for men.
I’ve got a female war movie I’ve been trying to get made for as about as long as “Luckiest Girl Alive” and it’s about one of the first women killed in active combat. You see them every year: war movies, World War II movies, we have “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” made this year. If I tried to get that movie made with women, I can tell you right now, it would be very difficult.
There is still an enormous double standard, particularly where historical figures are concerned. The movie I’m most excited to see is probably “The Woman King” because I know how hard that path was. I say that, again, as someone who is getting it done, but getting this movie made is really important to me because it really restored my faith in not giving up.
“Gone Girl”
20th Century Fox
What changes have you seen in the industry in recent years that make you feel optimistic?
I saw it at the time when we were making “Wild” and “Gone Girl” and “Big Little Lies.” It was the same year as “Wonder Woman” and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and I could feel the changes. It does buoy my spirits when I see things like “The Woman King” getting made.
I do feel shifts and I feel that TV has allowed people to take what they perceive as more risks, even though I don’t believe they’re risks. I think it’s what people want to see. We’ve had amazing experiences at a lot of these places, and I always do put it down to the individuals within these places to a certain extent. I do feel like they’re real changemakers within the streamers. [HBO and HBO Max chairman and CEO] Casey Bloys I think is a changemaker. I think [Disney chairman] Dana Walden’s a changemaker.
I am really buoyant about the future. Where I hope I can be more buoyant is with films, because I think we’ve seen such a swing away from more premium adult fare in terms of the cinema experience the last few years. I really hope that has a revival, because I know that’s certainly what I want to see.
What do you think the industry’s next big challenge is?
The next big challenge, I think, is volume. How do we curate it for ourselves, because there’s so much being thrown at us? Just the sheer volume is extraordinary. I think everywhere’s desperate for more infrastructure, so that we can keep making lots of content, but then we need to sustain that.
For me, the challenge is exactly what we were talking about before, which is making sure that we maintain new voices and these domestic businesses globally, that we get to see Spanish-language films, we get to see Norwegian films, we get to see Australian stories told by Australians. That, to me, is the challenge: that we don’t just get bogged down in the volume of content.
What have you not yet done that you’d like to do?
Oh, well, that’s easy! I want to do a big sci-fi, epic series. I want to do big. I want to make what’s my version of a Marvel movie. I really crave that. With everything we do, I learn something new. We just made our first unscripted show, which is coming out in Australia this month. It just uses different parts, it activates different parts of your brain. It’s exciting. You meet new people, you learn how something different’s done.
We optioned a big sci-fi book called “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” by Christopher Paolini that we’re developing as a TV show. I’m really excited about that, because it’s a big space odyssey and it’s just something I’ve never done, and he’s extraordinary. That, with obviously a woman at the center.
Why isn’t Marvel calling me to make their next movie? My friends joke, “Oh my god, what’s Bruna doing? She’s running the Brunaverse!” For my birthday, they put “The Brunaverse” on the Marvel logo. I should just send that to Kevin, right? Just a little logo. I just turned 50, and you do feel like you’re just getting started. People say that, but it’s true.
“The Luckiest Girl Alive” is now streaming on Netflix.
Scream Queensis a campy slasher series that’s not short on gore or star power. The Ryan Murphy horror creation, which first premiered on FOX in 2015, follows a group of bitchy sorority sisters and their pledges who are targeted by a terrifying, masked serial killer on campus. Jamie Lee Curtis, the reigning Scream Queen herself, stars as a morally compromised college dean, while Emma Roberts resumes her usual queen bee role and Niecy Nash-Betts lightens the tone as a hilarious rent-a-cop. If you’re looking for a scary stream this season that won’t keep you up all night but will give you a little fright, Scream Queens is it.
EXCLUSIVE:Chile has submitted Fernando Guzzoni’s Blanquita, exploring a real-life child prostitution scandal that rocked the country in the early 2000s, as its official entry to the best international film category of the Oscars.
The film was chosen as Chile’s official entry by members of the Chilean Film Academy, in its third selection since its creation in 2018.
“Once again we are witnessing both the quality and diversity of our cinema, as well as the criteria and commitment of our partners: 70% of them voted in this process, the most participatory since we as an Academy have been in charge of choosing the film that represents Chile at the Oscars”, said the body’s executive director Josefina Undurraga.
Blanquita world premiered in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival this year, winning the best screenplay prize for Guzzoni.
Big screen debutant Laura López stars as an 18-year-old resident of a foster home, who is a key witness in a trial against powerful politicians and businessmen implicated in a child sex scandal. As questions are asked, her role in the scandal becomes unclear.
Award-winning veteran actor Alejandro Goic co-stars as a priest who runs the home where the young woman lives. Further cast members include Amparo Noguera, Marcelo Alonso and Daniela Ramirez.
The feature is inspired by the real-life early 2000s Spiniak Case involving a paedophilia ring run by an entrepreneur and sports club owner, which provided services to a number of high-placed politicians and businessmen.
The case divided Chile as it went through the courts, with doubts being cast on the testimony of key witness who was caught up in the ring as a minor and accused two senators of abusing her.
Guzzoni spent a year investigating the case in-depth before writing his screenplay.
“I am very honored that Blanquita is Chile’s representative at the Oscars and grateful for the support of all my colleagues at the Film Academy,” said Guzzoni.
“The film puts forward in a thriller key an urgent issue about impunity and structural injustice in our country, therefore, it combines audience vocation and a story with high social sensitivity,” he continued.
“We believe that the film being awarded in Venice, the great reception from critics and the support of our international partners and distributors will allow us to carry out a campaign that seeks to make Blanquita’s message visible and position the film in the best possible way.”
Blanquita is Guzzoni’s fourth feature after La Colorina, Carne de Perro (Dog Flesh) and Jesús, about a troubled, teenager who turns to violence in search of thrills.
Giancarlo Nasi at Santiago-based Quijote Films is the lead producer in co-production with Pablo Zimbrón at Varios Lobos (Mexico), Donato Rotunno at Tarantula (Belgium), Pascal Guerrin, Yves Darondeau and Emmanuel Priou at Bonne Pioche Cinema (France), and Beata Rzeźniczek at Madants (Poland).
“Blanquita is a powerful and current movie, which should make an impression on the Academy members. I can’t wait for them to see it,” said New Europe CEO Naszewski.
Chile won the Oscar for best international film in 2018 with Sebastían Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman, while Pablo Larrain’s No was nominated for the 2012-13 race and Maite Alberdi’s The Mole Agent was nominated in the Best Documentary category last year.
The deadline for the Best International Film category closed on October 3, with around 85 titles being publicly declared so far. Last year, there were submissions from 93 countries.
Taylor Swift kept the “Midnights” oil burning later than usual late Thursday night and early Friday morning, revealing not just the name of one song at midnight, as has been her custom in the buildup to the Oct. 21 album release, but all five of the remaining mystery track titles, one per hour, until she finally reached a grand finale at 4 a.m. ET.
That very last track reveal brought — as she promised in a caption — “QUITE the twist of an ending,” with Lana Del Rey revealed as making the only featured guest appearance on the album. Del Rey will make her cameo on a song titled “Snow on the Beach,” which will be track 4 on “Midnights.”
The other four tracks whose titles were revealed in the wee hours as night went into morning were “Lavender Haze,” set to be the first track on the album; “You’re on Your Own,” track 5; “Labyrinth,” track 10; and “Sweet Nothing,” track 12.
The first-time collaboration of Swift and Del Rey perhaps should not be as shocking as it first seemed to drowsy onlookers when she dropped the news at 4 a.m., as the two pop superstars share a fairly constant co-producer/co-writer, Jack Antonoff.
As the clock struck 12 on the east coast, Swift first revealed “Lavender Haze” and left a video message explaining the meaning of the song on Instagram — something she didn’t do for any of the other songs being revealed early Friday, and something she’d previously only done for one other forthcoming song, “Anti-Hero,” a few days ago.
“‘Lavender Haze’ is Track 1 on ‘Midnights,’” she said in the video, “and I happened upon the phrase ‘lavender haze’ when I was watching ‘Mad Men.’ And I looked it up because I thought it sounded cool, and it turns out that it’s a common phrase used in the ’50s where they would just describe being in love. Like, if you were in the lavender haze, then that meant that you were in that all-encompassing love glow — and I thought that was really beautiful. And I guess theoretically, when you’re in the lavender haze, you’ll do anything to stay there and not let people bring you down off of that cloud. And I think a lot of people have to deal with this now, not just like ‘public figures,’ because we live in the era of social media, and if the world finds out that you’re in love with somebody, they’re going to weigh in on it. Like my relationship for six years: we’ve had to dodge weird rumors, tabloid stuff, and we just ignore it. And so this song is about the act of ignoring that stuff to protect the real stuff. I hope you guys like it.”
In her previous explainer for a new song, Swift talked about “Anti-Hero” on Monday, calling that track “one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before. You know, I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized, and that I, you know… not to sound too dark, but, like, I struggle with the idea of not feeling like a person. But don’t feel bad for me. You don’t need to. But this song is a real guided tour throughout all the things that I tend to hate about myself. We all hate things about ourselves, and it’s all of those aspects of the things we dislike and like about ourselves that we have to come to terms with if we’re going to be this person. So, yeah, I like ‘Anti-Hero’ a lot because I think it’s really honest.”
The other song titles Swift had revealed previously besides “Anti-Hero” (which is track 3 on the album) were “Maroon” (track 2), “Midnight Rain” (track 6), “Question…?” (track 7), “Vigilante Shit” (track 8) and “Mastermind” (the closing track, 13).
Beyond the basic 13 songs, a Target deluxe edition will include a 14th original song — that title still remains a mystery — along with two remixes.
Production credits for “Midnights” have not been revealed — nor has anything about the musical style, for that matter — but a making-of video montage Swift put online weeks ago depicted only Antonoff joining her in the studio, leading many fans to believe he may be the singer’s sole production partner on the new album.
No singles or even song snippets have been revealed from the album so far. At this point, it appears as though Swift may head into the Oct. 21 album release without having previewed a single second of the new music or even describing what it might sound like, although all things are subject to last-minute surprises in Swift-world, as the Del Rey reveal proved.
In “Last Flight Home,” director Ondi Timoner chronicles her entrepreneur father Eli, creator of Air Florida, in the final weeks of his life. The film captures their family’s experience as the 92-year-old patriarch chooses to exercise California’s legal right to end his own life.
Four people are to go on trial accused of kidnapping a British former public schoolboy in Italy and holding him chained to a stepladder in a bizarre £6,000 ransom plot.
Sam Demilecamps, 26, was found by police last year in a darkened room after police traced his mobile phone to a dingy flat where he had been left over scraps for eight days.
Officers were alerted after he texted his family and told them he was being tortured and beaten by the group, who told he would not be free him unless he paid them off.
British detectives alerted counterparts in Italy and Mr Demilecamps was found in an apartment at Monte San Giusto near Ancona after they signal from his phone was traced.
Sam Demilecamps, now 26, said he was held captive for eight days in Monte San Giusto, central Italy, by a gang who, he claimed, beat and tortured him, and fed him ‘leftovers like a dog’
Aurora Carpani, here 20, is one of the group of four arrested over the kidnapping of the Briton
The three men and a woman were quickly rounded up after the incident last October before being released under house arrest while charges of kidnapping and extortion were investigated.
At a preliminary hearing Mr Demilecamps, who was educated at a £36,000 a year Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire, told the court he had been kidnapped 200 miles away in Florence while staying at a hostel.
He was bundled into a van and driven to Monte San Giusto, describing his kidnap he said: ‘My captors had seen me spending lavishly. They kicked and punched me, used a taser and pepper spray, then dragged me into a car and gave me tranquilisers.
‘They drove me to Monte San Giusto. I was held underwater in a bath and beaten.’
He added how he had sent texts to family and friends asking for them to send him money as quickly as possible but instead his divorced parents Patrick Demilcamps and Jalaleh McCall, alerted police and the plot was foiled.
But just days days later eyebrows were raised after pictures emerged of him partying with his alleged kidnappers with some claiming it may have all been part of a plot to get money from his unsuspecting family.
This was fuelled after it emerged he knew all four kidnappers well after spending much of the summer of 2021 in the company of his alleged kidnappers, Rubens Beliga Gnaga, 19, Ahemd Rajraji, 22, Dona Conte, 23, and his girlfriend Aurora Carpani, 21.
Rajraji even had a video of Mr Demilecamps diving off rocks into a river with the group – seemingly none the worse for wear.
However earlier this week all four appeared in court in Macerata and opted for a fast track trial which was granted by a judge following a closed doors hearing which lasted less than an hour and which Mr Demilecamps did not attend.
Vando Scheggia, Rajraji’s lawyer, spoke for the four and told MailOnline: ‘As we have always said this was no kidnap plot and my client and the other accused all deny the charges against them.
‘They all knew each other and we have shown how they all knew each other, Mr Demilecamps boasted how wealthy he was but really he didn’t have very much. He was in the flat of his own free will and he was not tortured or beaten.
‘He had been lent money by the four and they allowed him to stay in the flat while he arranged to get them the money he owed them – that’s it, nothing more this isn’t some Mafiosi kidnap it’s very trivial.’
Clips from his and the alleged kidnappers’ social media show the group enjoying sunsets, clubs and waterfalls together shortly before he said he was abducted
Mr Scheggia added: ‘Mr Demilecamps was not handcuffed to the step ladder, rather he had the others handcuff him so that when he sent pictures to his family they could see he was in distress and send the money.’
It is not the first time Mr Demilecamps, who lives in Brighton, who describes himself as an ‘adrenaline junkie’ has made the headlines – in 2016 he broke a vertebra after leaping 180ft into the sea from a cliff at Taormina, Sicily, for a bet.
Judge Federico Zampaoli ordered the four to stand trial in December and if convicted on kidnap and extortion could be jailed for up to 30 years.
The film also stars Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring), Rainn Wilson (The Office), Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost) and William Fitzgerald.
Inappropriate Behavior, which is currently in production, follows Max Bernal (Cannavale), a once-successful late-night comedy writer turned not-so-successful stand-up comic, who moves in with his father (De Niro), having recently blown up his career and marriage. When he and his ex-wife Jenna (played by Cannavale’s real-life partner, Byrne) find themselves at odds with how to address the needs of their 11-year-old autistic son Ezra (Fitzgerald), Max decides to kidnap his child and take him on a cross-country odyssey.
The comedy is directed by Tony Goldwyn (The Last Kiss) from a Tony Spiridakis (Queens Logic) screenplay. Goldwyn and Spiridakis also serve as producers along with Jon Kilik (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Additional producers include William Horberg and Zhang Xin on behalf of Closer Media; and Steve Sarowitz, Justin Baldoni, Manu Gargi and Andrew Calof for Wayfarer Studios. Carla Raij, Cannavale and Lois Robbins are executive producers.
The deal was negotiated between Signature Entertainment’s Director of Acquisitions and Development, Elizabeth Williams, and Mister Smith CEO David Garrett. Signature plan to release the film in 2023.
Williams said: “Inappropriate Behavior completely charmed us when we read the script and we cannot wait to see it brought to life, especially with such a stellar cast. Audiences are going to love the smart comedy and heart-warming moments throughout. We look forward to releasing this feel-good film in the UK & Ireland next year.”
David Garrett added: “We are delighted to have Signature as our UK partner on this film. It is a story which combines both heart and humour and has a stellar cast which will bring out the very best from the writing.”
Full spoilers follow for Marvel Studios’ Werewolf by Night.
Werewolf by Night has clawed its way onto Disney Plus – but the lycanthropic superhero isn’t the only new supernatural creature to make its Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut in the TV special.
The MCU Phase 4 project introduces us to a number of new and potentially important characters, including Elsa Bloodstone. However, Elsa, Jack Russell (aka the titular Werewolf by Night), and company are overshadowed by the emergence of another superpowered being in Marvel‘s first special presentation: Man-Thing.
Who is Man-Thing? What are his abilities? And why might Man-Thing be as important to the MCU’s Multiverse Saga as Kang the Conqueror, Doctor Strange 2‘s America Chavez, Wanda Maximoff, The Watcher, and trickster god Loki?
Below, we’ll explain everything you need to know about the fan favorite character known as Man-Thing. That includes his Marvel comics origin story, every superpower at his disposal, how he holds another key to the MCU’s multiverse, where he could crop up next, and more. Strap in and let’s begin.
Man-Thing explained: Marvel comic book origins
Man-Thing’s real name is Theodore ‘Ted’ Sallis. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and Gary Morrow, Man-Thing made his comic debut in May 1971’s Savages Tales #1.
Real name Theodore ‘Ted’ Sallis, Man-Thing was a biochemist who worked in the Everglades as part of a project dubbed Gladiator. Alongside his fellow researchers, Sallis worked on a project to recreate the super-solder serum – yep, that stuff that made Captain America. Again. When will people learn?
Anyway, the villainous organization known as A.I.M – the very same one from Marvel’s Avengers videogame – attempted to steal Sallis’ research so they could use it for nefarious means. Conspiring with Sallis’ bitter wife Ellen Brandt, who Sallis had been neglecting due to his studies, A.I.M, well, aimed to rob Sallis of his work, with Ellen leading Ted into an ambush where A.I.M’s armed personnel would procure his research at gunpoint.
What they didn’t realize, though, was that Sallis had already concocted a formula, dubbed SO-2, and he planned to test the first vial on a test subject. To prevent any stealing his idea, Sallis burned his research notes after committing the formula to memory.
After being ambushed, Sallis managed to escape. Fearing for his life, he injected the serum into himself, only for the resulting transformation to cause him to crash his car in the Everglades. Here, a combination of the SO-2 serum, the swamp’s mystical energy, and a regeneration serum developed by Doctor Curt Connors – he of Spider-Man fame – resulted in Sallis turning into the Cthulhu-style, vegetation-covered creature known as Man-Thing.
Man-Thing explained: what superpowers does he possess?
Man-Thing is a powerful, dangerous entity. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
A simpler answer would be to list the abilities Man-Thing doesn’t have.
Man-Thing possesses your typical superpowers, such as superhuman strength, durability, stamina, and regeneration. However, based on Man-Thing’s makeup, the last two of those are based on chlorokinetics, a plant-based regenerative factor. He’s also able to turn his body into a fluid, allowing him to pass through small spaces – although, the smaller the gap, the longer it takes for his body to reorganize itself. He’s also immune to most diseases and physical weapons thanks to the vegetative matter he’s comprised of. Due to his affiliation to plant life, Man-Thing is also able manipulate vegetation around him.
Man-Thing’s most famous abilities, though, are his empathetic nature and the power to traverse the Marvel multiverse.
The first of those is down to how matter is organized in Man-Thing’s body. Due to his physical makeup, Man-Thing’s brain, sensory organs, and nervous system are randomly scattered throughout his body. This reorganization means he can’t communicate properly, but he’s still a sentient being. Coupled with the mystical and psychic forces that flow through him, Man-Thing is able to perceive emotions at a heightened state compared to humans.
Man-Thing possesses a number of unique abilities. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
Positive emotions arouse curiosity in Man-Thing and usually result in him observing humans from a distance. However, if he’s engaged by someone exhibiting negative emotions – typically fear, but others, such as anger, also work – Man-Thing has a tendency to violently lash out. This leads to Man-Thing secreting a highly concentrated form of acid, which burn humans and can turn them to ash in seconds. We get a glimpse of this power being used on Ursula Bloodstone and Jovan in Werewolf by Night. Incidentally, Man-Thing is unharmed by the acid he secretes thanks to a foamy, mucus substance that neutralizes the corrosive fluid.
Lastly, the mystical part of the Everglades that helped birth Man-Thing also grants him to ability to travel interdimensionally. Man-Thing can open portals to other realities – more on how this affects the MCU later – and interact with other multiversal creatures in parallel dimensions. Currently, he’s the guardian of the Nexus of All Realities in Marvel comics, too, which is the interdimensional gateway to every other realm in the Marvel multiverse.
We’ve previously seen the Nexus of All Realities in the MCU animated series What If…?. The Nexus has also been referenced in other MCU projects, including Thor: The Dark World and Loki season 1. And speaking of the MCU…
Man-Thing explained: making his MCU debut in Werewolf by Night
Man-Thing makes his MCU debut in Werewolf by Night. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
If you’ve seen Werewolf by Night – why wouldn’t you have if you’re reading this? – you’ll know that Man-Thing makes his MCU debut here.
About 20 minutes in, Gael García Bernal’s Jack Russell leans against the plant-based wall of Bloodstone Manor’s maze, only for him to be grabbed by a monstrous being. Russell, though, isn’t afraid of this creature, who turns out to be Man-Thing. In fact, Russell has joined the monster hunting party to rescue Man-Thing. He was captured and imprisoned by Ursula Bloodstone with the aim of seeing which monster hunter would successfully kill him and retrieve the magical, monster murdering item known as the bloodstone.
Unfortunately, Man-Thing can’t fight back against those who hunt him. With the bloodstone attached to his body, he’s weakened and can’t use any of his abilities. However, Russell, who teams up with Elsa Bloodstone, manages to remove the bloodstone from his friend, blow a hole in a wall of Bloodstone Manor’s grounds, and help Man-Thing escape.
That isn’t the last we see of Man-Thing. He turns up later on to save Elsa from Ursula, killing Elsa’s stepmother with the same corrosive acid he used on Jovan earlier. With Elsa now the rightful owner of her family heirloom, Man-Thing departs to find Russell who, after being transformed into his feral alter-ego and killing Ursula’s guards, fled into the night. The special’s final scene is reserved for a heart warming reunion between Russell and Man-Thing, who share a joke and discuss where they’ll go next.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Man-Thing has appeared in a live-action capacity. The character received a standalone, non-MCU film in mid-2005, which premiered on the Sci Fi channel in the US and earned a paltry $1 million from a small international theatrical release.
Man-Thing explained: what role could he have in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga?
Could Man-Thing be a key player in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga? (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
With Marvel Phase 4, Marvel Phase 5, and Marvel Phase 6 all exploring (or set to explore) the multiverse, Man-Thing could be an incredibly important character in the MCU.
His ability to open portals to other dimensions – like America Chavez – makes him one of the few superheroes who can traverse the multiverse. With Kang the Conqueror, another time-traveling individual who can do likewise, installed as the Multiverse Saga’s chief antagonist, the MCU’s Earth-bound heroes will need all the multiversal help they can get if they’re to defeat Kang. Man-Thing, then, would be a very useful ally to have.
So, where could he crop up next? That’s hard to say. Marvel’s Phase 5 slate is pretty much locked in at this point. Ant-Man 3, What If…? season 2, and Loki season 2 aside, it doesn’t appear as if any Phase 5 movies or MCU Disney Plus shows will examine the multiverse in great detail. Well, on the surface anyway. There’s always the possibility that other projects will contain multiversal elements, but we don’t know which ones might do so.
Give us more Man-Thing in the MCU, Marvel. (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney Plus)
What about Phase 6 then? This appears more likely, what with Deadpool 3, Fantastic Four, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and Avengers: Secret Wars all positioned as multiversal superhero films. Maybe Man-Thing will appear in one of these movies? If not, he could feature in a Phase 6 Disney Plus series or another TV special.
Simply put, we shouldn’t discount Man-Thing turning up in a future Marvel Studios production. After all, MCU president Kevin Feige has teased that Werewolf by Night will “ultimately become quite important to the future of the MCU”. Reading between the lines, Man-Thing has to be part of the conversation. He’s too important, from a multiverse perspective, not to be. Here’s hoping, then, that we see the lovable but dangerous Man-Thing in the MCU again.
It has taken quite a while for a major studio to discover the cinematic possibilities of a movie about a singing crocodile, but Sony’s Columbia Pictures has finally gotten the message and thus we finally have the film adaptation of Bernard Waber’s 1965 children’s book staple Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
It no doubt helped to have pop heartthrob Shawn Mendes deliver the voice for Lyle, and Oscar-, Grammy- and Tony-winning songwriting team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen, The Greatest Showman)suppling the snappy tunes, but thanks to its engaging title CGI creation, this crocodile rocks. No doubt is will serve as a welcome diversion for families starved for something to get the kids out of the house as Sony opens this CGI/live-action musical comedy exclusively in theatres.
Call me crazy, but it is hard to resist a singing croc who serves as a loyal companion to whatever human happens to come upon him, has a distinct talent for crooning, and loves to lather up in the bathtub. The CGI wizards have beautifully animated him and Lyle fits snugly in with the well-chosen human cast as well. But what really made him work for me is that the filmmakers — directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon (Blades of Glory, Office Christmas Party) and screenwriter Will Davies (How to Train Your Dragon) — thankfully did not make Lyle talk, only sing, and that makes him rely more on cute expressions, rather like the family dog, than saddle him with dumb dialogue. Davies saves that for the people he comes in contact with, and fortunately for this kind of movie they are all tolerable enough, if sometimes overly cartoonish, but what did you expect?
The film opens with a focus on ambitious magician Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem), who in his own mind thinks he is a major star, but in reality is anything but that. However, upon visiting an exotic pet store he discovers a baby crocodile happily singing the day away in his cage. Immediately a light bulb goes off and Hector sees the showbiz possibilities. After taking him home to his New York City brownstone, he works up an act with Lyle, only to be crushed when Lyle freezes in front of the paying crowd who came to see this phenomenon. Next thing you know we are back to the same house, but now the Primm family, consisting of father (Scoot McNairy), mother (Constance Wu) and son Josh (Winslow Fegley), are moving in as the new tenants.
One day exploring the attic Josh discovers Lyle living there and taking a bath. A note nearby from Hector says to please take care of his crocodile. There’s also sheet music and instruments. At first frightened but soon bonding with the friendly creature, Josh has found a friend to help him bear his new lonely existence in the city. Eventually Mom and Dad, after first freaking out (to say the least), warm to him as well. Unfortunately there is also an obnoxious neighbor downstairs, Mr. Grumps (Brett Gelman), who coddles his spoiled feline (another spot-on CGI creation) but believes there is something strange — and loud — going on with the Primms. The threat of Lyle being found out by the authorities looms over everything, but not before we get several catchy musical numbers along the way. And eventually Hector himself comes back into the picture, further complicating matters.
Innocent fun, toe-tapping songs and dance numbers — particularly with the signature tune “Take a Look At Us Now,” “Top of the World” overlooking the NYC landscape, and a kitchen duet for Wu and Lyle with “Rip Up the Recipe” — add to this PG family fare. Mendes may not be seen, but his familiar voice turns Lyle into a natural star. Mendes even penned and sings an additional song, “Heartbeat,” over the end credits, and blends nicely with Bardem who has his second singing role in as many years after playing Desi Arnaz in last year’s Being the Ricardos — he is clearly is having a blast doing it all. Wu and McNairy are fine as well, with the latter milking the slapstick in a wrestling match with Lyle. Fegley is an appealing presence as a kid just looking for a true friend and finding one in another species; just your usual boy-and-his-dog kind of movie plot. Gelman does the requisite villainy kind of thing here as Mr. Grumps with the one-dimensional approach it needs. His kitty steals all his scenes, though.
Kids ought to eat all this up, and if it doesn’t soar to the heights of the Paddington films, its closest cousin in the family genre, it has enough pure charm on its own to get by. Producer is Hutch Parker. Sony releases it wide Friday.
Check out my video review above with scenes from the film. Do you plan to see Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile? Let us know what you think.
Coolio will remain near and dear to his children’s hearts — and not just figuratively — because they’re designing jewelry to keep his ashes close.
According to the rapper’s death certificate, obtained by TMZ, Coolio’s body has already been cremated … and, we’re told that’s what prompted his 7 kids to come up with the idea for some special bling.
Coolio’s rep tells TMZ … each of his children will get a pendant to hold the ashes, along with a necklace.
Bombay Begums is a classic example of letting go of good opportunities in the name of sticking to the theme. Just when the audiences begin to feel a connection with the show, it changes track. The six-episode show loses steam within first two episodes and then keeps beating around the bush for the rest of it.
Rani (Pooja Bhatt) is a small-town girl who has made it in the big bad world of Mumbai corporates, but she has lately started to sense a change in her moral stances. While Fatima (Shahana Goswami) and Ayesha (Plabita Borthakur) work under Rani in the same organisation, Shai (Aadhya Anand) is her step daughter. Lily (Amruta Subhash), a sex worker, is the fifth vertex of this pentagon. Together they set out to create a story about the struggles faced by the women of different social strata and how they tactfully handle the hostile situations.
It was a good role for Bhatt to make a return to acting but her character couldn’t combat the monotony surrounding her existence in the show and how it was a unidirectional role without any frills. The creator—Alankrita Shrivastava (Lipstick Under My Burqa, Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare)—has tried to give her a solid ally in Goswami, but the repetition of sentiments and dialogues disguised as punchlines, have hampered their chances.
Bombay Begums never had any prolonged moments of realisation or even excitement. The crude antagonists are there for everyone to see and the non-judgmental vibes towards the female characters don’t always work in favour of the lead characters.
The show seems to be in a rush to give a clean-chit to the women, who were themselves doing a lot of wrongs. A balanced approach might have found the viewers rooting a little more for them.
However, superbly written characters of Ayesha and Shai provide some solace. They look genuine and have a great identification value. The side tracks don’t work at all as their sole purpose is to fulfil the need of bad guys in the lives of ‘begums’.
Bombay Begums, despite being a mini-series, is stretched and lacks coherence. The set-up never entices the viewers beyond the threshold.
The growing audience of major and lesser-known film festivals certainly does not signal the end of the cinema. It mirrors the growing number of movies which are produced and the social and commercial attractions of film festivals. Though one should keep in mind that over a twenty-year period through 2018 only about four percent of independent films in the Unites States generated a profit and that just ten percent were ever shown in theaters. The relative decline of independent films reflects a shift in the market orientation of film festivals. A long time ago, film festivals were the place for art houses and distributors to find productions that could potentially make it in Hollywood. When the New York Film Festival was set up sixty years ago. showing a Hollywood feature would have violated the selection criteria. With the rise of cable television, streaming platforms and the general shift to small screen exposure, new segments have entered the buying market. Today, major and minor streaming companies and distributors are probably the most important component of international film festivals and markets. Movie making is alive, but a significant portion of its audience has migrated to the home audience. Except for blockbusters, few make it to theatres. Seeing these mega films in theaters seems to have little appeal for younger audiences. Overall box office returns have declined and not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Despite its alleged economic problems and a significant decline of subscribers, Netflix has continued its dominant position as an active partner of film festivals and buyer of films.
Toronto International Film Festival’s 2022 return to in-person screenings after a two-year break was welcomed by audiences and participants longing for TIFF’s comprehensive diversified program. After the limited online screenings available during the pandemic, the 2022 selections satisfied audiences seeking any genre. From September 7 through 18 2022, TIFF offered options for anyone interested in new films from all corners of the universe, productions made by members of minority groups or different sexual orientations, films by women directors, and TIFF’s selection of the best films from other major film festivals. The 2022 program included productions ranging from LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES, a music documentary by Sacha Jenkins, Steven Spielberg’s alter ego self-portrait THE FABELMANS, and THE WOMAN KING by Gina Prince-Bythewood about an army of female warriors in 18th century Africa protecting their kingdom.
TIFF 2022 included 201 feature and 49 short films. There were 24 films available to the public through TIFF’s digital platform. 1,540 members of the press were accredited and 3,945 industry delegates. Among the 2022 awards were the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) prize for SWEET AS by Jub Clerc, the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI Prize for Basil Khalil’s GAZA WEEKEND, the Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature film for KILL A TIGER by Nisha Pahuja, the Changemaker Award to SOMETHING YOU SAID LAST NIGHT by Luis De Filippis, and the TIFF 2022 People’s Choice Documentary Award to Hubert Davis for BLACK ICE. Support for TIFF was received from their lead sponsor Bell, the major sponsors RBC, Via and Bulgari, as well as official Ontario and Toronto agencies and Telefilm Canada.
In her first film as a writer and director, Selcen Ergun portrays the experiences of a young nurse posted to an isolated village in the north eastern part of Turkey in SNOW AND THE BEAR. The film depicts the lives of villagers in a never-ending winter and bleak dark landscape. The prevalent conviction shared by most of the villagers is the threat of bears descending from the forest to their homes. The nurse Asli, played by Merve Dizdar, is from the capital and accepted the mandatory assignment. Her parents opposed her decision because they believed it interfered with Asli’s personal and professional future. Once Asli has moved into the village health center, she starts working with the villagers, raised in a rigid patriarchal structure. An explicit disregard of women and their views prevails and with men continuing to constrain them. The only overt authority is held by small group of soldiers posted there. Asli is not taken seriously because she is a woman and the villagers seeking help frequently do not trust modern medicine. When the roads are closed after freezing, the limited communications of the villagers focus increasingly on the threat of bears and a never-ending winter. Some villagers hold the traditional perspective that the person taking the life of a bear will be cursed and he or a member of his family will be killed by another bear. Bears are also considered an endangered species by the government and anyone killing then faces punishment. When the local butcher and drunkard Hasan goes missing, the elders organize a search party to find him and the presumed killer bear. They assume he was killed and devoured. Asli is excluded from the search party. Selcen Ergun’s story and skills as a director provide a superb perspective on the traditional cultural basis of rural Turkey. Her use of cinematography visual images and intentionally scarce communicative encounters are very close to a perfect ethnographic portrait of the community.
Another outstanding feature of the festival was RETURN TO DUST, a feature which premiered earlier this year at Berlinale. Created by writer-director Li Ruijun, the film follows two people part of a large extended family that make their living in a small agrarian community near Inner Mongolia. They succeed transcending this closed setting, despite the social and economic obstacles they face. Ma and Cao, the principal characters, are forced into a marriage. Their family no longer wants to take care of the disabled Cao with her persistent urinary problems. Ma, a hard working but somehow submissive man, is exploited by his family. Both are beyond the normal age of marriage and the imposed arrangement removes the family’s responsibility for what they consider worthless relatives. Cao mentions in passing that the donkey of the family had a marvelous life compared to hers. Yet the constraints and resentments imposed by the family, corrupt landowners, corrupt officials, and initiatives by governmental agencies to destroy traditional rural structures do not prevent the couple from establishing their own existence. They have no property or tools except for the donkey and their hands. Ma and Cao work hard to build a home with mud bricks made by them, care for the animals they raised, and cope with natural disasters threatening their crops. When Ma is offered an apartment, he is concerned with the lack of space for their animals. The audience slowly realizes the fundamental humanistic dimensions Li Ruijun presents in the evolving story of Cao and Ma, their care for others without any expectation of no compensation, Ma’s request that workers get proper pay from the landowners, the couple’s persistent grounding in nature, and unquestioning attachment to the soil. Love, consideration of others, and moral demeanor remain possible even if the world around us fades away. Superb performances by the two professional actors the director chose for Cao and Ma, the perfectly framed images of their rustic landscapes, and the outstanding script are essential ingredients in this impactful film.
PARIS MEMORIES is a 2022 feature by Alice Winocour with Virginia Efira in the principal role of Mia. Paris is the background, but Mia is the focus. Mia is trying to reconstruct her memories of a mass shooting she survived at a Paris restaurant in November 2015. Her memories are fractured after the first shots were fired. She tries to assemble the few bits and pieces she recalls from what happened to her before and after the terrorist attack. Mia refuses to repress the painful traumatic impact of the event, a path some of the survivors embraced. She tries to reassemble her prior life as a translator but realizes that her past life is over. Mia gets more and more involved in her quest to find out what happened to her during the attack. There are frequent visits to the place of the crime where she encounters a group of other victims meeting there on a regular basis. Some seem to recognize her from the day of the attack. One accuses her of having locked herself up the bathroom preventing others from escaping the killers. In her attempts to recover, Mia grows close to the other victims and helps them cope with their losses. In this highly personalized feature, the audience understands the psychology of the victims and the problems of leading a normal life after significant trauma, a dimension missing from most films about terrorism. The restaurant continues its business as usual, having fired most of the employees who had worked there before the attack. Mia decides to live by herself, ending her relationship with a boyfriend that considers her obsessive craving for the truth to be abnormal. Life cannot continue the way it was before, and she prefers the company of other victims. Mia ends her search when she finds the person who saved her life during the shooting, Assane, a cook who hid with her in a closet. She also enters into a relation with Thomas, a fellow victim shot in the restaurant and whom she met in a hospital room.
Plenty of shows set the tone for fashion trends, but few have become so celebrated for its makeup that it inspires a whole new genre—like Euphoria makeup. That’s exactly what the hit HBO show did with its inventive use of glitter and artful takes on eyeliner. Instantly, “Euphoria makeup” was all anyone could talk about.
But as much as we’d love for cloud eyeliner or glitter tears to be part of our day-to-day, they’re not really the most practical—unless, of course, you’re talking about Halloween. Every year there’s a Halloween costume that promises to be both topical and easy to execute, and for 2022 that’s without a doubt Euphoria makeup, even years after the first season premiered. Not only can you wear something already in your closet (unless you’re going for Kat’s cam-girl glow-up, in which case, amazing), but most of the makeup you need is just one Amazon Prime order away.
The other great thing about dressing up like a Euphoria character for Halloween is that there isn’t one single makeup look that’s better than the rest. They’re all fantastic, and every character has more than a handful to choose from—which, admittedly, can also make it difficult, so we asked the show’s head makeup artist, Doniella Davy, to break down how she created each of her favorite looks.
Whether you want to go as Rue, Cassie, Maddy, Jules, or Kat, scroll on for Davy’s best advice and the products she recommends to re-create the looks at home.
All products featured on Glamour are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Hulu’s new Hellraiser from director David Bruckner knows that the concepts of leather, latex, and pain as a source of sexual pleasure have become much more mainstream in the decades since Clive Barker’s original 1987 film first introduced the world to Pinhead. You can see that awareness reflected all over the film in its multitude of narrative updates that make this new Hellraiser feel tailor-made for our recent era of sex positivity and anxieties over how people relate to sex.
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.
Though it shares a handful of notable plot points with Barker’s novel The Hellbound Heart, Bruckner’s Hellraiser tells the mostly new story of a young woman named Riley (Odessa A’zion) who inadvertently unleashes chaos and pain into the lives of the people she loves most after she solves a mysterious puzzle box. The twisted sights and sadistic delights heralded by this new Lament Configuration are things that Riley, her brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), and their friends can’t begin to fathom as Hellraiser opens. But the movie presumes that it’s all familiar enough territory to its audience to warrant the briefest of glimpses at the next generation of Cenobites in an early scene that takes away some of their mystique before the main story really begins.
Odessa A’zion as Riley.Image: Hulu
While Hellraiser does eventually become a horrific psychological thriller about the new exquisitely femme Pinhead (Jamie Clayton) and her fellow Cenobites terrorizing a group of unsuspecting 20-somethings, it starts on a surprisingly chaste and almost prudish note. It bothers Matt that Riley met her new boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) at a 12-step-program. It also bothers Matt that his sister, who lives with him, and her boyfriend have zero qualms about having passionate (and very audible) sex in his apartment while he and his boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) are trying to entertain guests.
In both the original Hellraiser and The Hellbound Heart, people’s sexualities and deep-seated desires were big parts of the animating energy driving things forward. Here, though, there’s a pronounced lack of eroticism outside of an inert sex scene between Riley and Trevor establishing how unreceptive she is to his midthrust proclamations of love. Rather than simmering sexual tensions that bubble over into otherworldly madness, Riley and Matt’s fraught relationship is the new Hellraiser’s emotional core, which would be fine were it not for the way the movie often feels like it’s trying and mostly failing to ape HBO’s Euphoria when it’s focused on them.
Hellraiser is just not all that interesting as it’s — somewhat moralistically — establishing its heroine as an impulsive woman who can’t quite get past her demons. But that all changes drastically after Riley and Trevor break into a storage container one evening in search of valuables to fence, only to find a small golden box that emits an unsettling, alluring aura.
The Lament Configuration puzzle box.Image: Hulu
It’s once the box has gone through its initial transformation and summoned the first of many new Cenobites that Hellraiser really starts coming alive and demonstrating how the 11th installment in a horror franchise can manage to make you sit up, in moments. If you’ve seen a Hellraiser film, then you know how the Cenobites like to get down, and each of the new movie’s gruesome murder scenes will strike you as a return to the franchise’s roots.
In each of the new Cenobites — The Chatterer (Jason Liles), The Weeper (Yinka Olorunnife), The Gasp (Selina Lo), The Asphyx (Zachary Hing), The Mother (Gorica Regodic), and The Masque (Vukašin Jovanovic) — there’s a consistent air of haute couture to their physical forms. What’s lacking in Hellraiser’s script is more than made up for by the information about the Cenobites that you can infer from the astounding detail that concept designer Keith Thompson and prosthetics artists Josh and Sierra Russell put into each character’s uniquely mutilated body.
Clayton’s Pinhead, the Hell Priest, is truly a sight to behold and a brilliantly elegant reimagining of the classic demon, with an ensemble fashioned more out of the absence of flesh rather than just scarification and skin-tight material. Hellraiser’s smartly judicious in the way it deploys Pinhead, dropping her into just enough key moments to let Clayton’s unsettlingly serene performance sing without letting you get too comfortable watching her tear people apart.
Jamie Clayton as Pinhead.Image: Hulu
But as mesmerizing as Clayton’s Pinhead and the other Cenobites are, it’s in spite of how middling and strangely sententious the movie feels as it draws to a close. Again, different strokes will always appeal to different folks, and Hellraiser’s firing on enough cylinders to be exactly the sort of gore-fest that people are wont to watch as we roll into spooky season. But for those in search of more cerebral scares (or folks who just aren’t into torture porn as entertainment) Hellraiser should probably be approached with a little caution.
Hellraiser also stars Hiam Abbass, Goran Višnjić, and Kit Clarke. The film hits Hulu on October 7th.
After dedicating five long, hard years of my life to making this movie—writing grant application after grant application (Mama Bears is an 
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