The teams match up Saturday for the sixth time this season. The Blue Jays are ahead 3-2 in the season series.
TOP PERFORMERS: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has 19 doubles and 21 home runs for the Blue Jays. Matt Chapman is 17-for-36 with three doubles and five home runs over the past 10 games.
Jeimer Candelario has 10 doubles, two triples and 10 home runs for the Tigers. Willi Castro is 5-for-26 with two home runs over the last 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Blue Jays: 8-2, .326 batting average, 3.07 ERA, outscored opponents by 42 runs
INJURIES: Blue Jays: Alek Manoah: day-to-day (elbow), Bo Bichette: day-to-day (shoulder), George Springer: day-to-day (elbow), Julian Merryweather: 60-Day IL (side), Tayler Saucedo: 60-Day IL (hip), Hyun-Jin Ryu: 60-Day IL (forearm), Andrew Vasquez: 15-Day IL (ankle), Nate Pearson: 60-Day IL (mono)
Tigers: Rony Garcia: 15-Day IL (biceps), Michael Pineda: 15-Day IL (tricep), Beau Brieske: 15-Day IL (forearm), Wily Peralta: 15-Day IL (hamstring), Matt Manning: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Austin Meadows: 10-Day IL (achilles ), Casey Mize: 60-Day IL (elbow), Kyle Funkhouser: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Spencer Turnbull: 60-Day IL (elbow), Jake Rogers: 60-Day IL (elbow)
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
Dream, try … or don’t come back? Danielle Fishelrevealed she was almost fired from Boy Meets World — when she was only 12-years-old.
Fishel, 41, starred as Topanga Lawerence on the hit sitcom from 1993 to 2000, but while looking back at her first ever rehearsal for the ABC series during a July episode of “Pod Meets World” with former costars Will Friedle and Rider Strong, she recalled how series creator Michael Jacobs almost gave her the boot.
“Michael starts off the notes by saying, ‘Danielle, I’m going to give you your notes all at one time, at the end and I’m going to give everyone else their notes now,’” the Girl Meets World alum said. “’Because if I made everyone sit here through all of the notes I had for you, we would all be here for hours and no one would ever get to go home. So you’re just going to wait for the end.’”
She continued, “From that moment on I remember my eyes welled up because I’m in front of everybody. All of the producers all of the writers all of the cast and all eyes are on me for a second.”
The Arizona native went on to explain that she was a very “bubbly, fast-talking [and] spunky,” child who found it “very hard to speak slowly,” which seemingly annoyed the showrunner, 67. Fishel, who had already replaced another actress in the role, was then sat at a table with her mother at the end of the rehearsal and told, “If you don’t come back tomorrow doing this entirely differently, you are also not going to be here.”
The Dish host claimed that the following day she returned to work having made the adjustments and received a “round of applause” from the cast and crew after Jacobs praised her for doing “exactly what I asked of you.”
Friedle, 45, revealed that Jacobs’ treatment of the PopSugar reporter was a norm on theBoy Meets World set. “[Jacobs] set it up in such a way that when he gives you the standing ovation, it’s like the sun is shining on you. It had nothing to do with your acting. It was just, make Michael feel good,” the Kim Possible alum explained.
“There were no more threats of being fired, I had done the work and I had shown him that I was worthy,” Fishel agreed. “It totally sets up that you go after that every week. You’re chasing the dragon of Michael approval.”
David Trainor — a director of the show and a guest on the podcast at the time — called the New Jersey native’s behavior towards Fishel “hateful,” before adding, “I don’t want to be associated with anything that guy is associated with. This is just not how you do things. I’m glad it became a hit, but this is disgusting.”
Despite her clash with the writer, Fishel continued with the show for all seven seasons, even reprising her role in the 2014 spinoff series, Girl Meets World on Disney Channel.
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Netflix is suing the songwriting team behind the unauthorized “Bridgerton” musical for infringement, court documents filed Friday in a Washington, DC US District Court revealed.
Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear created the homage to the smash hit Netflix show in 2021 with a series of music videos posted to TikTok. The record streamed more than 45 million times, hit No. 1 on iTunes US pop charts, and won a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album in 2022.
Netflix initially supported the idea when it debuted as a free online tribute. The problem between them began on July 26, 2022, when Barlow and Bear staged what Netflix says is a “for-profit” performance of “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical Album Live in Concert” for a sold-out crowd at the Kennedy Center, with tickets ranging up to $149 each.
According to the lawsuit, the live show featured over a dozen songs with verbatim dialogue from the series, along with “dramatic portrayals of ‘Bridgerton’ characters by Broadway actors, emoting through the performance of the songs that comprise the ‘musical.’” Netflix says Barlow and Bear “misrepresented to the audience that they were using Netflix’s BRIDGERTON trademark ‘with Permission,’ while Netflix vigorously objected.”
“Defendants Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear and their companies (“Barlow & Bear”) have taken valuable intellectual property from the Netflix original series Bridgerton to build an international brand for themselves,” the lawsuit stated. “Bridgerton reflects the creative work and hard-earned success of hundreds of artists and Netflix employees. Netflix owns the exclusive right to create Bridgerton songs, musicals, or any other derivative works based on Bridgerton. Barlow & Bear cannot take that right—made valuable by others’ hard work—for themselves, without permission. Yet that is exactly what they have done.”
Now, the suit says, Barlow and Bear “announced they intend to stage yet another performance of their unauthorized derivative works at the Royal Albert Hall in London, making this a world tour.” In addition, the suit claims that the team even promoted their own line of “Bridgerton”-themed merchandise.
Netflix is asking to be “entitled to recover its reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs of suit and interest” and “be awarded any and all such other and further relief as this Court shall deem just and proper.”
In each episode of MrBallen, series host John Allen appears in the center of the frame, usually wearing a plaid shirt with a couple of buttons undone and a baseball cap turned backward, and slowly talks viewers through the events of a “strange, dark, and mysterious” true crime story. Episodes with titles like “What I saw in my room still haunts me” and “Real-life ‘ghost ship’ has a SECRET,” bring in more than 40 million monthly views — a massive volume that still is not enough to put Allen in the upper echelon of YouTube influencers. But in podcasting? He’s a star.
Steven Cohen, a longtime audio industry sales executive, was shocked when he dug into the stats for the podcast version of MrBallen, which launched in February. The show was “putting up numbers that, honestly, having come from a reasonably big network, I had never seen,” he told The Verge. The opportunity was big enough that Cohen decided to leave his role as vice president of Audacy-owned podcast network Cadence13 to join the independent true crime show.
Cohen, who joined the company as head of sales in May, said that July is on track to do the same. And yes, 7 million is less than 40 million. But 7 million monthly downloads get you a spot at the top of Spotify and Apple’s podcast charts and plum CPM rates with advertisers with which YouTube cannot compete.
The show has a few things in its favor: the insatiable demand for true crime content; a preexisting fan base; and Allen’s radio voice. But MrBallen’s success is also indicative of the merge that is happening between YouTube and podcasting. YouTube is the No. 1 platform for podcasts (yes, above Spotify and Apple), according to a study by Cumulus, and with videos of podcast recordings now par for the course, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish what exactly is the difference between a podcast and a YouTube video.
Allen recognized the resemblance early on after launching the YouTube show in March 2020. “It’s a video podcast on YouTube. We don’t call it that, but that’s what it is,” he said. “I really had no idea how to scale a YouTube channel into anything else. I wanted to do a podcast but I just didn’t have the bandwidth.”
He brought on a business manager, Nick Witters, created a sustained YouTube audience, and expanded his staff. He finally got his podcast off the ground two years later, and it didn’t take long to garner millions of listens. It also gave the brand more visibility, even if the raw numbers in podcasting are less than what they see on YouTube.
But just because the bar is lower in podcasting does not mean it is any easier to break out. Podcast has a discovery problem, and the charts are still dominated by long-standing shows like The Joe Rogan Experience and My Favorite Murder. Newer hits tend to come from celebrities, like SmartLess with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett and The Always Sunny Podcast with Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney.
However, it’s not enough to be an audio star anymore. Apple Podcasts has hosted videos since 2005, with TED Talks Daily and Club Random with Bill Maher taking advantage of the functionality. Spotify has some of its biggest stars like Rogan and Call Her Daddy’s Alex Cooper post video podcasts, and the company recently announced it was expanding the video podcast feature to six additional countries, including France, Mexico, and Brazil. Audiences like having the video option, and Spotify and Apple have an interest in warding off YouTube. Plus, video clips are more shareable than audio clips — think Call Her Daddy’s viral “Unka Jahms” moment.
MrBallen, despite originating on YouTube, has not yet fused its video and audio operations. The podcast is still audio-only, and there are some differences between the episodes. The YouTube videos tend to be shorter and spookier, while the podcast episodes are more in-depth and cover true crime stories.
That divide will soon end. Cohen said that “we’d like to find a way to have all of those things meet in the middle.” On August 8th, MrBallen is launching a new YouTube channel specifically to feature videos of the podcast recordings.
And while other hit shows have spawned networks, like Pod Save America with Crooked Media and My Favorite Murder with Exactly Right, Allen and Cohen want to focus on the core product for now. “Before we expand, and possibly dilute what it is we’ve got, we want to be very, very careful,” said Cohen. “We are rocking this very gently to bed every night, making sure it sleeps well, wakes up renewed and refreshed the next day.”
Chris Cuomo visited HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher on Friday and reflected on his exit from CNN.
At the start of the sit-down, host Bill Maher asked Cuomo if he was happy that his recently launched podcast, The Chris Cuomo Project, has been getting attention. Cuomo was previously a CNN host until the cable channel dropped him in December amid details emerging that he advised his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, regarding allegations of sexual harassment.
“Happy — probably not the right word,” Cuomo replied. “I feel like I lost a sense of purpose for a while because of how things ended.”
Cuomo said his goal with his future projects is to be “breaking through the toxic twosome of partisan politics and speaking to the vast body of people in this country who are just regular, and they want things to make sense.”
When Maher asked if it feels good to hear reports that CNN’s ratings in his former time slot are down significantly since his departure, Cuomo said it doesn’t and that he doesn’t believe in schadenfreude. “It’s a great organization, and they’re great people there,” he said. “I want good things for people there. I don’t like how it ended. I had a great team I didn’t get to say goodbye to. I just want to move on.”
When asked how brother Andrew is doing after resigning as governor of New York in August, Chris said, “I’m supposed to say, ‘Oh, he’s great,’ but that would be what we call bullshit, right?” The journalist added, “He has been in a struggle, and I have watched it, and I am proud of how he’s handling himself.”
Cuomo also discussed his own newly announced primetime show on cable network NewsNation that is set to debut this fall: “I’m going to NewsNation because I believe in insurgent media, and I think NewsNation has a chance to not be seen as groupthink.”
Ranveer Singh surely knows how to steal the show with his antics. While the actor always turns heads with his sartorial fashion choices, Deepika Padukone impresses fans with her elegance and grace. On Friday, Ranveer and Deepika walked the ramp at Mijwan Fashion Show 2022 in Mumbai. The power couple turned show stoppers for Manish Malhotra, who returned with his first edition since the COVID-19 pandemic. The star-studded event was a big hit.
But what caught the attention of many was when Ranveer’s sweet gesture at the event. As Ranveer walked the ramp, he went to his mother, Anju Bhavanani, who was seating in the front row. The actor leaned in to kiss her before he touched her feet. The Simmba actor also took blessing from his sister’s feet and greeted Ishaan Khatter and Gauri Khan sitting beside them.
Watch the video here:
The video quickly went viral on the internet and Ranveer’s fans couldn’t stop complimenting the actor. One of the users wrote, “Sanskari munda. (well cultured man.)”
The event was a starry affair, with celebs including Gauri Khan, Karan Johar, Dia Mirza, Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia D’Souza, Nora Fatehi, Asha Bhosle, Javed Akhtar, Vidya Balan and Ishaan Khatter. The fashion show was organized by Shabana Azmi in association with her NGO Mijwan Welfare Society.
Deepika also shared pictures of herself and Ranveer on her photo-sharing application.
Deepika looked mesmerizing as she walked the ramp in a heavy white ivory lehenga and Ranveer looked dapper in a Black sherwani ensemble with white ivory work.
On the work front, Ranveer will be next seen in Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus and Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani opposite Alia Bhatt in her pipeline. On the other hand, Deepika has Pathaan, Fighter, Project K and the Hindi remake of The Intern in her kitty.
With Stranger Things‘ season 4 now fully pumped into their bloodstreams, fans have already taken to the internet to discuss what they think is next for their favorite characters. Since the Russo Brothers have stated that Will will be at the center of several storylines in the next season, this had led to several fans taking to platforms, such as Reddit, to express their excitement and theories as to how this could come to fruition.
It’s quickly becoming obvious that with a complex science-fiction drama horror show like Stranger Things, the possibilities are endless and entertaining. It would certainly be interesting to see if any of the Redditors’ theories actually come true.
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Will Gains Superpowers
The concept of Will gaining superpowers would be an interesting Stranger Things‘ storyline for the writers to explore in depth in season 5, given how powerless he can appear to be at times.
Redditors reacted positively to this theory, with much of their enthusiasm centering around the prospect of Will getting some measure of revenge. “Poor Will has been tortured for so long,” writes user Mhc2617, “Let him get to kick some a**.” As the mild-mannered underdog, Will’s potential empowerment would be cathartic for fans since they had been used to him either being pushed to the sidelines or kept in a safe place when the epic battle sequences commenced. It would also allow fans to see him and Eleven work side by side – which is something fans had longed to see for a while.
Will’s Red D&D Dragon Reigns Supreme
Noting the significance of the D&D Red Dragon character that Will painted for Mike, Reddit user calembo points out that the Red Dragon is the “only monster more powerful than Vecna in that campaign.”
The possibility of Will either becoming or controlling the Red Dragon D&D character in the Upside Down is too good to pass up for fans, which is understandable. The idea of Stranger Things bringing in another villain similar to Vecna is exciting and fits the show’s fictional scenario. The fans love all the creatures on the show, so they’ll eat up every monster they get.
Will Is The Reason The Upside-Down Is Frozen In Time
User teddyburges comments that the Upside-Down “… mirrors his [Will’s] own mental state– frozen in time, wanting to be kids forever, playing D&D.” kicking off a discussion about Stranger Things‘ time-bending intentions.
The Duffer Brothers have already stated that the time-freeze element of the Upside Down will drive a big chunk of the narrative in season 5 (via Deadline). Redditors had already sensed the time suspension is key to a lot of answers; the clues as to its creation point to Will, especially due to the D&D motif and the fact that Will vanishes on Nov 6, 1983, the day that the Upside-Down was frozen in time and Eleven opened the Hawkins Lab mothergate.
Will Must Accept Growing Up And Letting Go To Defeat Vecna
In one of the more mind-blowing hypotheses linked to Will as the Upside-Down creator, Redditor Nickienac suggests that his character is holding on to 1983, ” … before everyone grew up and apart some, before El “stole” Mike, etc.,” and Will has to accept reality in order to be able to defeat Vecna.
The idea of “growing up” has gradually emerged as a big theme in the show, mainly because the audience is watching these youngsters mature into young adults. Plugging the triumph of good over evil into Will’s grown-up decisions to let go of his childhood and accept the harsher realities of the bigger world would prove a great dramatic story arc (and certainly better than the ones in season 4); its power would be bound to the evolving lives, bodies and minds of its core characters.
Will Is The Dungeon Master
A top Reddit theory is that Will’s character will dominate season 5 because he is subconsciously shaping and controlling everything. Reddit User ReaperCDN posits, “Will is the DM … he’s been manifesting the game he wanted to play the whole time.”
This theory gets a lot of enthusiastic responses and for good reason–there’s an undeniable narrative link between Will’s real-world fantasy and the supernatural story structure, such as the Will-centered architecture of the Upside-Down (his house) and the D&D-inspired elements within it. Many Stranger Things fans want Will’s character to get more screen time in season 5 and they may well get what they want.
Will Is The Wizard (Like Harry Potter)
Since Will has said that he can “feel” Henry, Redditors suggest that Will and Vecna might have a supernatural connection similar to Harry Potter and Voldemort, and thus it will be the two of them facing off in the final Stranger Things battle.
“Annnnnnnd what was Will’s character when introduced playing D&D?” Redditor ProvoqGuys writes, “A wizarrrd!” There is no escaping how perfectly this wild theory fits into the weird universe of Stranger Things. If Will created the Upside-Down mirror-universe in an instant that captured his way of dealing with the world, then it makes sense that his version of himself is part of the D&D scenario along with Vecna. That might also mean, if the personas of the others involved in the game also transfer, that Lucas is the Knight and Dustin is the Dwarf character class.
Will Becomes The Villain
Reddit user 49Billion tables the idea that Will “… has part of Vecna in him and his jealousy toward El makes him the biggest villain …” Fellow Redditors liked this wild idea and thought it workable.
It’s possible that something of Vecna has absorbed into Will, and even though he has a good heart, he’s gone through so much torture that there may well be a way for Vecna or some event to flip his switch to the dark side. The possibility of Will starting season 5 with good intentions, then becoming a villain alongside or competing with Vecna is tantalizing, especially if there is a Darth Vader moment when Will ultimately realizes what he has become and sacrifices himself to destroy Vecna and save his friends.
House of the Dragon Showrunners On Competing With LOTR: The Rings of Power
About The Author
Richard Preston (17 Articles Published)
An English literature major, Richard Preston wrote for film and TV before choosing a life of poverty writing historical fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. He’s currently working on the 4th book of his steampunk adventure series, “The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin.” He saw Star Wars in the theater 36 times the summer it was released. You can keep up to date with his activities on his Substack Newsletter at richardellisprestonjr.substack.com
The future is now! Expect to be living on platform cities in the next 30 to 40 years.
If there was any doubt that the future is here (for better or worse), just remember that you are now living in George Jetson’s lifetime. Animation fans are celebrating an important milestone this weekend, as several savvy Twitter users noticed that the Spacely Sprockets employee, husband to Jane, and father of June and Elroy, is said to be born on July 31, 2022. That still gives us 40 years before the events of the show begin, so there’s no need to feel bad about not having flying cars yet.
“The Jetsons” famously followed a middle class family living in Orbit City in a chrome-tinged future where robots allow humans to live leisurely. It was conceived as a companion show to “The Flintstones,” which famously reimagined 1950s sitcom tropes from shows like “The Honeymooners” in a Stone Age world full of cavemen and dinosaurs. “The Jetsons” took the inverse approach, making a sitcom about an American nuclear family that happens to take place in an era of flying cars and two-hour work weeks. Much of the humor stemmed from the fact that, in the world of the show, things have stayed the same as much as they have changed. Technology may have advanced in leaps and bounds, but human nature results in the same amount of complaining and miscommunication. (If you see an especially cranky toddler somewhere, you can imagine that’s George’s cantankerous boss, Cosmo Spacely.)
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But it may not be as rosy a future as you might think: “Jetsons: The Movie” establishes that humans only live in stilt-condominiums high above the clouds because smog has made it impossible to live on the earth’s surface. Add in rising sea levels and that be where we’re headed after all.
“The Jetsons” was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1962. It starred George O’Hanlon, Janet Waldo, Mel Blanc, Penny Singleton, DawsButler, Don Messick, Jean Vander Pyl, Frank Welker, and Howard Morris. It reflects very much a mid-20th century vision of the future, one that’s most optimistic. (On the other hand, guess what year “Soylent Green” is set: 2022.)
The show originally ran for 24 episodes on ABC, and had the distinction of being the first television show to be broadcast in color on the network. It was later revived in 1985, with an additional 51 episodes being produced with the original voice cast and broadcast in syndication. The series officially concluded with “Jetsons: The Movie” in 1990, which was directed by Hanna and Barbera. Though the series stopped being produced, the characters remained in the cultural zeitgeist, popping up on shows such as “Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law” and in movies like “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” In 2017, the first new Jetsons production was released when the futuristic family starred in the direct-to-DVD film “The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WrestleMania!”
We talk a lot about history-making Emmy nominations and wins, and it’s always fun to talk about “firsts” — such as “Squid Game” becoming the first non-English-language show to land a series nomination. But one breakthrough that struck me was BET’s significant showing via its streaming service, BET+.
That includes a nod in the directing for a comedy series category, for the freshman series “The Ms. Pat Show,” and choreography for scripted programming via the period drama “The Porter.” It’s the first time BET has received any major scripted series nominations; the company’s previous three nods were for music direction, actress in a short-form series and exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking. BET’s only Emmy to date came from the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which honored it for the public service campaign “Rap-It-Up.”
In other words, it’s about time. Even though BET has been around for more than four decades — having launched in 1980 — it has never been in serious Primetime Emmy contention until this year. It’s the latest feather in the cap of BET head Scott Mills, who was promoted to CEO in November.
For much of BET’s existence, it was known more for its music programming and videos than for original fare. When he took over as company president nearly five years ago, Mills sought to change the image of BET, signing Tyler Perry to an overall deal, launching BET+ and creating BET Studios.
“These two historic nominations really are first important milestones and an extraordinary affirmation of this transformation of BET that the whole team has been working on for the last four-plus years,” Mills tells me. “We realized that to realize our potential, that we would really have to elevate the quality of the content that we delivered to our audience, we would have to expand the breadth of the content we delivered to our audience, we’d have to expand the resonance and relevance and ultimately the volume because we were creating all these platforms. And so, to do that, we knew we had to work with top Black content creators and we had to really expand BET’s relationships.”
“The Ms. Pat Show” came to BET via Lee Daniels — and rather than tone down comedian Patricia “Ms. Pat” Williams’ routine, they put it on the streaming service. “It’s a very real comedy that allows us to stretch the way that we tell stories,” says BET+ general manager Devin Griffin. “It’s easy to focus on the blue notes of the show, the language and all of that, but we look at it as something that’s really honest.”
Griffin says he hopes the Emmy recognition for two very different shows in “Ms. Pat” and “The Porter” is a reminder that “we understand that Black stories are varied and the Black experience is not monolithic,” noting BET+ is “a platform for edgier stories, bolder ideas.”
Coming up on the docket are new shows including “Queenie,” starring Taraji P. Henson as the “godmother of the Harlem Renaissance,” as well as the thriller “Average Joe” (starring Deon Cole) and what’s coming up from Kenya Barris as he settles into his new BET Studios deal.
“When we created BET+, the positioning was always that it was the premium BET content plat- form,” Mills says. “And there’s no better way to underscore that than securing, a couple years into the launch of the service, our first two Emmy nominations.”
Oklahoma City heavy music oddballs Chat Pile made the meme-friendly decision to close their excellent debut God’s Country with a nine-minute song called “grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg.” It is an amazing song title, and the official merch is as obvious as it is undeniable. What the noise outfit manages to do on the sludge-metal odyssey is pretty incredible: Ronald McDonald’s blazed pal is not a mere punchline, but a specter of imminent self-destruction.
The band’s vocalist Raygun Busch is palpably distressed as he speaks to the initially nameless “purple man” smoking weed in his bedroom. The band’s massive industrial chug and wall of feedback amplifies his agitation, and soon, his irritated murmur becomes a full-on shriek. His thoughts turn obsessively to self-harm, his plans becoming chillingly specific before he finally screams the name of his tormenter: “GRIMACE.” When did the plush, mitten-fingered dude from McDonaldland become so demonic? The song’s final moments are harrowing: After outlining a plan to plunge himself into oblivion, Busch follows with sustained screams. It’s a devastating song for such a ridiculous title, like if Carrie & Lowell concluded with a song called “garfield_divorce_papers.pdf.”
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Whatever your feelings about the year so far, it’s fair to say that 2022 has thus far been a whirlwind. If fact, as adults for whom time is increasingly becoming an abstract concept at best, we’re contractually obligated to exclaim “I can’t believe it’s almost August already!” There, now that’s out of the way we’d like to bring your attention to this list of great Q&A’s, all part of our ongoing Film Independent Presents series of virtual and in-person screenings.
THE NORTHMAN
Guest of honor: Robert Eggers (writer/director); moderated by Jacqueline Coley (Awards Editor, Rotten Tomatoes)
About: From visionary director Robert Eggers comes The Northman, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.
What critics are saying: “What’s perhaps most impressive about The Northman is that it hurtles through 136 minutes of musclebound, shaggy-maned mayhem without a whisper of camp or a wink of irony,” writes A.O. Scott, of The New York Times.
YOU WON’T BE ALONE
Guest of honor: Goran Stolevski (writer/director); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, You Won’t Be Alone follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human.
What critics are saying: “A witch discovers life, love and death via the bodies of others in a beautifully made and moving treatise on what it it means to be human,” writes Benjamin Lee, of The Guardian.
MONTANA STORY
Guests of honor: Scott McGehee (director), David Siegel (director); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: From the acclaimed writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (What Maisie Knew, The Deep End) comes a neo-Western with an emotional tremor hiding beneath it. Two estranged siblings (Haley Lu Richardson, Owen Teague) return home to the sprawling ranch they once knew and loved, confronting a deep and bitter family legacy against a mythic American backdrop.
What critics are saying: “Owen Teague and Haley Lu Richardson in a Well-Acted Tale of Family Demons,” says Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman.
PLEASURE
Guests of honor: Ninja Thyberg (director), Sofia Kappel (actor); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature film is a journey into the Los Angeles porn industry through the lens of newcomer Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel). Strong, self-confident and determined, Bella embarks on a mission to become the best at any cost. Pleasure is written and directed by Thyberg, with a stunning first-time performance by Kappel, who anchors an ensemble of adult industry actors.
What critics are saying: “A Raw and Real Inside Drama About the L.A. Porn Industry,” writes Variety‘s Owen Glieberman.
EMERGENCY
Guests of honor: Carey Williams (director), KD Dávila (writer); moderated by Josh Welsh, President, Film Independent
About: Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and his best friend, Sean (RJ Cyler), are both seniors in college about to embark on an epic night of Spring Break parties. Sean has the whole night planned out, including every party they will hit on their “legendary tour.” Kunle is down, yet mostly concerned with finishing up his mold experiment in his lab, as his acceptance to Princeton is hinging on the results. They return to their apartment to pre-game, yet find that their roommate, Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), left the door open. As they enter with trepidation, Sean and Kunle discover a drunk, semi-conscious White female they don’t know on the floor and an oblivious Carlos, who didn’t hear her come in over the video game blaring in his ears. Kunle wants to call the cops but Sean vehemently opposes the idea, concerned how it will look when the cops show up (two Black men, one Latino man and a passed out White woman). Together, Carlos, Sean and Kunle load the girl (who they nickname Goldilocks, but whose real name is Emma (Maddie Nichols) into Sean’s van, with the intention of taking her somewhere safe rather than calling the police. Meanwhile, Emma’s sister, Maddy (Sabrina Carpenter), has realized that Emma left the party they were at, and begins to search for her in a drunken panic using Emma’s phone’s location. What ensues is a chaotic, hilarious, and tension-filled chase all over town as our trio grapples with their differences while attempting to bring Emma to safety.
What critics are saying: “Emergency is a genre thriller that owes a great debt to the films of Spike Lee and Jordan Peele. It’s tightly wound, uncompromising in its anger, yet also a beacon of kindness. A terrific achievement,” gushes Rohan Naahar, of The Indian Express.
TANKHOUSE
Guests of honor: Noam Tomaschoff (writer/director), Matthew Cooper (producer), Richard Kind (actor), Stephen Friedrich (actor) and Tara Holt (actor); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: When thespian couple Tucker Charlemagne and Sandrene St. Jean are kicked out of the avant-garde theatre scene in New York by their long-time acting guru Buford Slezinger, they must venture back to Sandrene’s hometown of Fargo, North Dakota to start a new theatre company and win a residency at the historic Fargo Theatre. Should be a piece of cake for our cultured artístes, right? Wrong. Upon arrival, they discover that Fargo already has a theater company headed up by Sandrene’s ruthless former drama teacher Mr. Mortensen, and they mean business.
What critics are saying: “Tankhouse might not be for everyone with its outlandish humor, but if viewers are willing to invest in the absurdity, then it’s worth watching. Tomaschoff has clearly created this movie out of respect for anyone who has loved spending time in the theater, and with a game cast ready to shoulder the material, it becomes something very sweet underneath all the quirk,” says ScreenRant‘s Rachel Labonte.
FIRE ISLAND
Guest of honor: Andrew Ahn (director and Film Independent Fellow); moderated by Josh Welsh, President, Film Independent
About: Set in the iconic Pines, Andrew Ahn’s Fire Island is an unapologetic, modern day rom-com showcasing a diverse, multicultural examination of queerness and romance. Inspired by the timeless pursuits from Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice, the story centers around two best friends (Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang) who set out to have a legendary summer adventure with the help of cheap rosé and their cadre of eclectic friends.
What critics are saying: “Indie director Andrew Ahn creates a mainstream queer classic with the romcom Fire Island, his inventive modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Following a group of gay friends on a wild vacation, it features some of the funniest and most tension-filled scenes in any movie this year. As complete as any piece of entertainment can be,” says Siddhant Adlakha, IGN.
CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH
Guest of honor: Cooper Raiff (writer/director/star); moderated by Janelle Riley (Deputy Awards and Features Editor, Variety)
About: Fresh out of college and without a clear life path going forward, 22-year-old Andrew is stuck back at home with his family in New Jersey. But if there’s one thing that belongs on his nonexistent résumé, it’s how to get a party started, which lands him the perfect job of motivational dancing at the bar and bat mitzvahs for his younger brother’s classmates. When Andrew befriends a local mom, Domino, and her daughter, Lola, he finally discovers a future he wants – even if it might not be his own. Cooper Raiff writes, directs and stars alongside Dakota Johnson, Brad Garrett, Leslie Mann and newcomers Vanessa Burghardt and Evan Assante in this tale of unconventional love that brims with emotional honesty.
What critics are saying: “Raiff’s ambition to break free from sentimental formula and forge a path of his own is clear, making him an exciting young filmmaker to watch,” writes Roger Ebert‘s Christy Lemire.
WE FEED PEOPLE
Guests of honor: Sara Bernstein (producer) and Andrew Morreale (editor); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: WeFeedPeople spotlights renowned chef José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen’s incredible mission and evolution over 12 years, from being a scrappy group of grassroots volunteers to becoming one of the most highly regarded humanitarian aid organizations in the disaster relief sector.
What critics are saying: “A major reason the film is so satisfying is that it restores faith in the idea that people can act selflessly in the best interest of strangers in need,” writes Mark Keizer, of The A.V. Club.
MARCEL THE SHELL
Guests of honor: Dean Fleischer Camp (director), Nick Paley (co-writer) and Kirsten Lepore (animation director); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Marcel is an adorable one-inch-tall shell who ekes out a colorful existence with his grandmother Connie and their pet lint, Alan. Once part of a sprawling community of shells, they now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. But when a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family. A beloved character gets his big-screen debut in this hilarious and heartwarming story about finding connection in the smallest corners.
What critics are saying: “This kid-friendly A24 movie is somehow whimsical, bittersweet, life-affirming and a little bit heartbreaking all at once. And that makes it the perfect movie for the moment,” writes Fox 10 Phoenix’s Caroline Siede.
BRIAN AND CHARLES
Guests of honor: David Earl (writer/actor), Jim Archer (director) and Rupert Majendie (producer); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Brian and Charles follows Brian, a lonely inventor in rural Wales, who spends his days building quirky, unconventional contraptions that seldom work. Undeterred by his lack of success, Brian attempts his biggest project yet. Three days, a washing machine, and various spare parts later, he’s invented Charles, an artificially intelligent robot who learns English from a dictionary and has an obsession with cabbages. What follows is a humorous and entirely heartwarming story about friendship, family, finding love and letting go.
What critics are saying: “If Brian and Charles is ultimately more E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial than A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, it’s still a feel-good charmer with a glowing human heart,” writes BFI’s Leigh Singer.
THE BLACK PHONE
Guests of honor: Scott Derrickson (writer/director ); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney. Starring four-time Oscar® nominee Ethan Hawke in the most terrifying role of his career and introducing Mason Thames in his first ever film role, The Black Phone is produced, directed and co-written by Scott Derrickson, the writer-director of Sinister, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Marvel’s Doctor Strange.
What critics are saying: “A film set in 1978 that feels like it was made in 1978 in all the best possible ways… There’s a raw realism to it in a supernatural setting that I found really compelling,” says KPCC FilmWeek critic Christy Lemire.
DON’T MAKE ME GO
Guests of honor: director Hannah Marks (director), actors John Cho and Mia Isaac; moderated by Josh Welsh, President, Film Independent
About: When single father Max (John Cho) discovers he has a terminal disease, he decides to try and cram all the years of love and support he will miss with his teenage daughter Wally (Mia Isaac) into the time he has left with her. With the promise of long-awaited driving lessons, he convinces Wally to accompany him on a road trip from California to New Orleans for his 20th college reunion, where he secretly hopes to reunite her with her mother who left them long ago. A wholly original, emotional and surprising journey, Don’t Make Me Go explores the unbreakable, eternal bond between a father and daughter from both sides of the generational divide, with heart and humor along for the ride.
What critics are saying: “It’s easy to take the ride with Max and Wally because of the two performers who bring them to life,” writes Roger Ebert‘s Brian Tallerico.
MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS
Guests of honor: Anthony Fabian (director); moderated by Jenn Wilson, Senior Programmer, Film Independent
About: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is the enchanting tale of a seemingly ordinary British housekeeper whose dream to own a couture Christian Dior gown takes her on an extraordinary adventure to Paris.
What critics are saying: “Lesley Manville delivers an effervescent performance that reminds us of her formidable comedic, as well as dramatic range,” writes Time Out‘s Cyrus Cohen.
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(Header, L-R: Josh Welsh, Mia Isaac, Hannah Marks, John Cho )
SAN FRANCISCO — The trial over Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover bid will take place beginning Oct. 17 in Delaware Chancery Court, a judge ruled Thursday night, putting the world’s richest man on a collision course with the social media giant.
Meanwhile, Musk formally launched a countersuit against Twitter late Friday, capping off two weeks of legal maneuvering by both sides.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick signed off on a trial schedule for the week in mid-October, the court documents said. Twitter had pushed for an expedited timeline in the matter to prevent damage to the company, an order that was granted earlier this month.
The 164-page countersuit filing by Musk Friday was placed under seal, however, meaning the arguments were not publicly accessible. The confidential response consisted of counterclaims against Twitter,, according to a summary provided by a court filing system. Confidentiality can be permitted for certain categories of information, according to the court, such as trade secrets, sensitive financial or business information, or personnel details, for example.
Confidentiality for a filing — like Musk’s on Friday — should be granted only “if the public interest in access to Court proceedings is outweighed by the harm that public disclosure of sensitive, nonpublic information would cause,” the court rules say.
Court rules specify that those making a confidential filing in Delaware should issue a public version within five days, though there are exceptions. The public version would contain redactions of the specific confidential information.
Twitter sued Musk earlier in July alleging that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had broken his agreement to buy the social media site for $44 billion, in a complaint that accused Musk of rule-breaking and “hypocrisy.”
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in April, positioning himself as a champion of free speech and pledging to unbind the site from aggressive moderation tactics he decried as political in nature. He also promised a significant portion of his own wealth to back the deal.
Musk also took aim at spam bots, or fake or automated accounts, which he pledged to defeat “or die trying” if his bid succeeded.
But his view toward the deal soured weeks later, as Musk tweeted the deal was “on hold” pending an evaluation of the percentage of fake accounts on the site. The about turn coincided with investor worries and economic pressure that took a significant toll on the Tesla stock, which is connected to much of Musk’s net worth.
That sparked a public battle as Twitter sought to provide evidence for its estimation that spam and bot accounts made up fewer than 5 percent of accounts on the site.
Let’s talk about spam. And let’s do so with the benefit of data, facts, and context…
Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Paper Girls” on Amazon Prime
In “Paper Girls,” Amazon Prime’s new series based on the comics of the same name, four girls come face to face with their futures — but only three of them get to meet their future selves. That’s because, in Mac’s future, she’s dead. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s something that young series star Sofia Rosinsky actually enjoyed playing out.
In the first episode of the series, which is now streaming in its entirety on Amazon Prime, we find Erin (Riley Lai Nelet), Mac (Rosinsky), Tiff (Camryn Jones) and KJ (Fina Strazza) transported to 2019. There, they almost immediately run into Erin’s older self, played by Ali Wong. Though the girls are dubious, it doesn’t take long for Mac to figure out how the internet works and do some research. The thing is, she doesn’t look for herself; she looks up her brother.
He’s a doctor now, and has turned his life around in a big way. Of course, his bedside manner could use some work, as he bluntly tells Mac in episode 3 that she couldn’t possibly be his sister, because his sister died when she was 16. The realization rocks Mac a bit, but eventually she comes to accept her fate. And though Rosinsky herself was sad to learn of her character’s fate, she also enjoyed seeing how the young paper girl handled it.
“Of course it’s a very delicate subject matter. And you know, it breaks your heart just to see, because she’s had things rough, and it looks like it’s not gonna get any better for her,” Rosinsky explained to TheWrap. “But I think that the way that she handles it, she handles it with such grace.”
And though Mac had no trouble saying and doing exactly as she wanted to begin with, Rosinsky noted that learning of her fate felt freeing for the character.
“I really think that it’s kind of an opportunity for her to be able to explore who she really is,” she added. “And I really love that.”
Of course, even after her brother filled her — and thus, the audience — in on some pretty extensive specifics, there are still some questions surrounding Mac’s fate by the end of the series. Those kick in particularly hard after she and KJ visit Mac’s gravestone. At this point, Rosinsky recognizes spoiler territory, so she won’t give anything up, but she admitted that she’s just as curious as fans are.
“I think you and me both here. Yeah, I don’t know. I’d love to find out though,” she said. “I hope that we get that chance to explore it more.”
All eight episodes of “Paper Girls” are now streaming on Amazon Prime.
A Spanish prosecutor is reportedly set to seek a maximum of 8 years in prison and a $23 million fine against superstar singer Shakira for tax evasion, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The three-time Grammy winner is accused of not paying nearly $15 million taxes from 2012-2014. The superstar says she has already paid about $17.5 million to the Spanish tax office to settle her obligation. Yet in July of last year, a judge ruled that there was enough “evidence of criminality” for the singer, who is the star and EP of NBC’s Dancing With Myself reality competition, to be tried.
While Shakira is Columbian, the prosecutor’s office alleges she was “ordinarily resident in Spain between 2012 and 2014 and in May 2012 bought a house in Barcelona.” That home, officials contend, was for not just the singer, but husband Gerard Pique, who plays for FC Barcelona, and their son, who was born in Spain in 2013. The duo announced they were separating last month.
A statement from the superstar’s representatives to the BBC contends she is “fully confident of her innocence” and views the case as a “violation of her rights.” She reportedly recently rejected a settlement offer from prosecutors.
NEW YORK — Will Smith has again apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him during the Oscar telecast in a new video, saying that his behaviour was “unacceptable” and that he had reached out to the comedian to discuss the incident but was told Rock wasn’t ready.
“There is no part of me that thinks that was the right way to behave in that moment,” Smith said in the under-six minute video posted online Friday. “I am deeply remorseful and I’m trying to be remorseful without being ashamed of myself.” To Rock, he said: “I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Smith, seated in a polo shirt and white ball cap, spoke directly to a camera, answering pre-selected questions about his behaviour at the March 27 Academy Awards, when he slapped presenter Rock after the comedian made a reference about the hairstyle of Jada Pinkett Smith, Smith’s wife.
Smith also apologized to Rock’s family and especially his mother, Rosalie, who was horrified to see her son hurt and told US Weekly that, “When he slapped Chris, he slapped all of us. He really slapped me.” Smith also apologized to Tony Rock, Chris’ younger brother.
“I didn’t realize how many people got hurt in that moment,” Smith said.
Neither the apology or timing impressed crisis and PR expert Eric Schiffer, who called it “bizarre, strange and grossly overrehearsed.”
“It came across like he was doing a confessional in some closed room in a foreign country in order to escape the regime,” said Schiffer, chairman and CEO of Patriarch Equity and chairman of Reputation Management Consultants. “It’s just not the way to get out of the septic muck he put himself into because, once again, it started being about him and it’s still about him.”
In the video, Smith also apologized to his family “for the heat that I brought on all of us” and his fellow Oscar nominees to have “stolen and tarnished your moment.” He mentioned Questlove by name; it was the musician-director’s documentary win for “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” that was interrupted by the slap. Rock was on stage to present the documentary award.
Smith also said his wife did nothing to encourage his slap. “Jada had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I made a choice on my own.” Pinkett Smith has said that she has alopecia areata, a hair-loss disorder.
Following the altercation, the motion picture academy banned Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years. Smith apologized to Rock in a statement after the Oscars, saying he was “out of line and I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry really isn’t sufficient,” Smith said in the video, adding that he is hurting because he hasn’t lived up to fans’ impressions. “Disappointing people is my central trauma.”
Many had speculated that Smith would appear on camera to discuss the slap first on Pinkett Smith’s online series “Red Table Talk,” but he chose to do it in a social media video post without any followup questions or surprise queries.
“It just had the reek of a fabricated attempt to be real. And that’s not what he wanted to accomplish, nor was it persuasive,” said Schiffer. “I do wish him well and hopefully he will find the right path. That path is really about humbleness and not about ego and self.”
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The reality series was both the highest-rated and most-watched broadcast title in primetime
CBS’ “Big Brother” scored the biggest ratings in the highly-coveted 18-49 demographic Thursday with a 0.8 score and the largest overall audience with 3.5 million total viewers.
As audiences continue to wait for many of their favorite scripted series to return with new episodes this fall, live sports and reality competition series have been trading the nightly broadcast primetime ratings crown back and forth. On Thursday night, it was the unscripted reality genre that claimed the largest victory.
But despite the strong showing, CBS was not actually the most-watched network on the night. That honor belongs to ABC, which drew 2.8 million total average viewers across primetime. Never a dull moment when it comes to broadcast battles.
Here’s how primetime shook out among the major networks Thursday:
CBS was first in the ratings with a 0.4 average rating in the advertiser-friendly 18-49 demo, but second in total average viewers with 2.7 million, according to official live plus same-day Nielsen data. A rerun of the network staple and hit prequel series “Young Sheldon” kicked off primetime at 8 p.m. with a 0.3 demo rating and 3.1 million total viewers. At 8:30, a rerun of breakout sitcom “Ghosts” — which returns with new episodes this fall — notched a 0.3 rating and 2.7 million total viewers. “Big Brother” took home the aforementioned ratings crown with a hefty 0.8 score and 3.5 million total viewers. Finally, a rerun of “CSI: Las Vegas” closed out primetime with a 0.2 demo score and 1.6 million total viewers. CBS audiences are really getting their money’s worth lately.
ABC was second in the ratings with a 0.3 average demo score, and first in total average viewers with 2.8 million. At 8, “Press Your Luck” proved mighty lucky with a strong 0.5 score in the 18-49 target range, not to mention 3.4 million total viewers. It was the second highest-rated and most-watched show on broadcast during Thursday’s primetime lineups. It was followed at 9 by “Generation Gap,” which also performed with a 0.4 demo score and 3.1 million total viewers. And at 10, “The Con” conjured up a 0.2 rating score and 2 million total viewers.
NBC was third in the ratings with a 0.2 average demo score and 2.2 million total average viewers. The Peacock aired a night of trusty “Law & Order” reruns. It began at 8 with “Law & Order” (0.2, 2.3 million) before segueing into “Law & Order: SVU” (0.3, 2.6 million) at 9 and then “Law & Order: Organized Crime” (0.2, 1.8 million) at 10.
Fox was fourth in the ratings with a 0.2 average demo score but just 858,000 total average viewers. “MasterChef” cooked up a 0.2 in the demo ratings and 1.1 million total viewers. Then audiences were hit with back-to-back reruns of “Welcome to Flatch” — the first episode notched a 0.1 rating and 575,000 total viewers while the second episode garnered a 0.1 rating and 528,000 total viewers, respectively.
The CW was fifth in the ratings with a 0.0 average demo score and 316,000 total average viewers. At 8, “Walker” earned a 0.0 demo score and 352,000 total viewers and at 9 “The Flash” stumbled to a 0.0 rating and 281,000 total viewers.
Neither Fox nor The CW airs primetime programming at 10 p.m.
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision finished first with a 0.3 average demo rating and 967,000 total average viewers. “Mexicana Y El Guero” started primetime with a 0.2 score in the ad-friendly audience target and 874,000 total viewers. “La Herencia, Un Legado de Amor” was next at 9 with a strong 0.3 rating and 1.1 million total viewers. And “Mujer De Nadie” closed things out at 10 with a 0.3 demo score and 894,000 total viewers.
Telemundo was second in the ratings with a 0.2 demo score and 1.1 million total average viewers. “Casa De Famosos,” which ran from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., earned a 0.3 demo rating and 1.2 million total viewers. “Amor Valiente,” which ran from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., earned a 0.2 demo score and 969,000 total viewers.
Katie Holmes was looking for the “highest level of talent” for her Covid-era Airbnb rom-com, Alone Together. That’s why she reached out to her very own daughter, 16-year-old Suri Cruise.
While Holmes wrote, directed, and starred in the film, she brought in Suri to record a cover of “Blue Moon” for the opening credits. “I always want the highest level of talent,” Holmes told Yahoo Entertainment. “So I asked her! She’s very, very talented. She said she would do it and she recorded it, and I let her do her thing. That’s the way I direct in general: It’s like, ‘This is what I think we all want—go do your thing.'”
The song holds significant sentimental value for the mother-daughter pair. According to Holmes, she was inspired by Diane Keaton’s own rendition of “Blue Moon” for Rob Reiner’s 2014 film, And So It Goes. “Diane met my daughter when she was a year old,” Holmes told Yahoo.
This isn’t the first time Suri has been featured in one of her mother’s films. “She actually did sing in Rare Objects, which is the film we did last fall,” the proud mom shared. “Other than that, she’s a 16-year-old kid doing high school.”
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While Katie Holmes and her former husband Tom Cruise welcomed Suri in 2006, the Dawson’s Creek star was awarded primary custody of her daughter in 2012. “I like to keep her out of my interviews, but I will say that this time of quarantine has been such a lesson,” Holmes said during an interview with The Daily Telegraph back in 2020. “Just really looking at everything you have and celebrating the simplicity of making dinner and [spending] that time together.”
The King of Queens actress was a late addition to So You Think You Can Dance’s 17th season. Leah Remini came in for the show’s milestone 300th episode, and despite her background in entertainment — including appearances on Dancing With the Stars as a contestant, guest host, and guest judge — fans were a little confused about her lack of specific dance expertise. Remini addressed those people on Instagram. Check it out:
So while Leah Remini argued that she has every right to be on the panel, pointing out that she even owns a dance studio and has been taking lessons in all different kinds of dance, she’s on So You Think You Can Dance to judge the performances. Viewers of Season 17 have definitely seen her disagree with her fellow judges when she is entertained by a number despite any technical errors.
Also, the actress questioned, what makes a person worthy of judging a dance competition? Does one have to be a dancer? In the end, she basically told fans to just back off and let her have her fun, which she’s apparently having a lot of. She said in the video:
For the one guy who’s like, ‘Why is Leah Remini judging a dance show?’ Because I am! I love dancing, and I’ve been ballroom dancing. I’ve got my own dance studio. I’ve been taking ballroom, cha-cha, rumba, jive, like I do it all, and salsa… But, who can judge a dance show? I’m having a great time, I’m not even there as a dancer, I’m there as somebody who just enjoys dancing. I’m an actress, I’m a performer, so it’s about performing. That’s what I’m judging, so that’s the answer to that question. I’m having the best time. Just let me enjoy it!
So You Think You Can Dance airs at 9 p.m. ET Wednesdays on Fox, and you can catch up on this season’s episodes with a subscription to Hulu. Be sure to check out our 2022 TV schedule to see what premieres are coming soon.
“People are ready to pull you down,” Paltrow opened up, “and say you don’t belong there and you’re only there because of your dad or your mom or whatever the case may be.”
The daughter of Tony winner Blythe Danner and late director-producer Bruce Paltrow explained to fellow celebrity offspring Hailey Bieber (née Baldwin) that children of Hollywood have to work “twice as hard” to make it in the industry.
“I mean, look, I think it’s fair because as the child of somebody, you get access that other people don’t have, so the playing field is not level in that way,” Paltrow admitted during Bieber’s “Who’s In My Bathroom?” YouTube series. “However, I really do feel that once your foot is in the door which you unfairly got in, then you have to work almost twice as hard and be twice as good.”
The Academy Award winner continued, “People are ready to pull you down and say you don’t belong there and you’re only there because of your dad or your mom or whatever the case may be.”
Paltrow explained that criticism shouldn’t “limit” the goals of the next generation of Hollywood.
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“What I definitely believe is that nobody in the world, especially anybody that doesn’t know you, should have a negative impact on your path or the decision that you make,” the Goop founder summed up.
After decades in the spotlight, Paltrow herself has opted to take a break from acting following her most recent role in 2020’s “The Politician.”
“I really don’t miss it at all,” Paltrow explained recently. “I think I’m so lucky that I got to do it, and I still, I’m sure I still will, at some point.”
She added, “The team is always trying to get me to do a movie, but I really love what I do. And I love how immediate it is, and how, you know, we’re able to create product out of thin air that we believe in so much.”
Paltrow’s next role, she teased, is one that her mother Danner actually advised. “I don’t daydream about the movie business at all, but…I did promise my mother that at some point before I die, told her that I would go and do a play,” Paltrow hinted at a Broadway production. “So I’m going to deliver on that promise at some point.”
Reflecting on her career as a whole, Paltrow previously told “Good Morning America” in 2020, “I sort of felt like, ‘Well, now who am I supposed to be?’ Like, what am I driving towards? [Being an actor is] so transitory, you’re always all over. It’s hard to plant roots. I’m such a homebody, you know me, I like to be with my old friends and cook and squeeze my kids. Like, I don’t want to be alone in a hotel room in Budapest for six weeks…it’s just not who I am.”
Mozzy, the prolific Sacramento rapper, has begun a 12-month sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Atwater, California. The musician had been indicted by a federal grand jury in California on a weapons possession charge in 2021. The rapper eventually agreed to plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. In addition to the yearlong sentence, Mozzy paid a $55,000 fine, according to court documents.
When reached by Pitchfork, a representative for the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate named Timothy Cornell Patterson (Mozzy’s legal name) began a 12-month sentence on July 28. In addition, a representative for Mozzy shared the following statement from the musician: “Life comes at you fast. Sometimes shit gets real & you gotta take that deal. It’ll get slimy out here. Appreciate my loved ones. Chin up, chest out. Love you the most.”
Just last week, Mozzy released his new album Survivor’s Guilt. It marked his first record issued in partnership with Yo Gotti’s Interscope imprint CMG.
Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson once said, “art is the window to man’s soul. Without it, he would never be able to see beyond his immediate world, nor could the world see the man within.”
Much of American culture has been shaped by its art – but how might our world be different today if the literature, films, and music that have defined generations of Americans never even saw the light of day? Here are nine of the most iconic American masterworks that were almost never made.
1. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”by Mark Twain
A portrait of Mark Twain taken by A. F. Bradley in New York, 1907.
Following the tremendous success of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” Mark Twain began to pen a sequel starring Tom’s rugged best friend, Huck. The story was meant to be in a similar vein to its predecessor: a thrilling adventure book for children without much complexity. In the midst of writing the sequel, however, Twain took a three year hiatus, during which he embarked on a river cruise down the Mississippi River. No one is sure what exactly Twain may have witnessed on this journey, but when he returned to his manuscript afterward, the book transformed from an uncomplicated children’s book into a charged commentary on slavery, segregation and racial identity. He took yet another three year hiatus before finally completing the book nearly a decade after he started it in 1876.
2. “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
Harper Lee was 31 years old when she took her first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird” – then called “Go Set a Watchmen” – to publishers at the now-defunct JB Lippincott Company in 1957. Editor Tay Hohoff was impressed with the read, but felt it was not yet ready for publication. She pushed Lee through revision after revision – and Lee became more and more frustrated as the taxing cycle of writing and rewriting moved slowly along. One particularly draining winter night, a fed up Lee tossed the entire manuscript out of her window. It landed in the snow. Lee called Hohoff in tears, ready to give up on the book entirely, but Hohoff persuaded her to run outside and pick up the pages before they were completely ruined. Lee begrudgingly rescued her draft – and not long after, the final draft of the book was published under the new title “To Kill a Mockingbird.“
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3. “Carrie” by Stephen King
“Carrie” is Stephen King’s first published novel – and arguably his most popular. Still, King was never particularly attached to “Carrie” – going as far as to throw the first three pages of the story in the trash. In “On Writing,” King wrote that he “never got to like Carrie White.” He told Playboy Magazine that he felt the whole book was “clumsy” and “artless.” He was working as an English teacher when he first started writing it and had only received authorial success through short story publications in magazines. He believed Carrie White’s story was too complex to squeeze into a short story, and decided to trash it. Afterward, his wife Tabitha discovered the pages in the trash can and recovered them. She believed there was something worth saving in the story and encouraged King to continue writing it. He did, and soon he was armed with the novel that would launch him into stardom.
4. “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was not particularly interested in stories about women – at least not typical women – so when a publisher asked her to write a “girl’s story,” her stomach filled with dread. Alcott had a fierce and rebellious spirit. She was already a published author under the pen name A.M. Bernard, and she wrote primarily mysteries and short stories about strong women who did not confide to societal norms. She cautiously agreed to try to write a story for and about the average American woman, deciding to base the story on the experiences of herself and her sisters, because she “never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters.” Alcott found the work dreadfully boring and was ready to give up, when a test group of girls read the start of the first draft and became enthralled with it. With that encouragement, she finished “Little Women” and published it. Eventually, she returned to writing stories she was more interested in, admitting in her journal that she was “tired of providing moral pap for the young.”
About the Master
Louisa May Alcott • Writer • Nov 28, 1832 – Mar 16, 1888
5. “Rent” by Jonathon Larson
Jon Larson was working as a waiter at the Moondance Diner in SoHo when he conceived of the idea of “Rent.” His most recent musical, “Superbia,” had received relative praise at its workshop in downtown New York City, but no one wanted to produce it. Producers found the story too depressing – musicals were meant to be uplifting. Larson was ready to quit writing musicals altogether, exhausted by the bitter rejection that followed years of hard work. During this time, Billy Aronson, a friend and fellow playwright, approached Larson with the idea for a bohemian style musical set in New York City. Larson fell in love with the idea and his passion was reawakened. He and Aronson, however, disagreed on their respective visions for the musical, and they made little headway on the book and lyrics. Eventually, Aronson left the project and gave Larson permission to pursue it on his own. Larson did, and the devastating and empowering musical “Rent” was finally born.
6. “Take the ‘A’ Train” performed by Duke Ellington and written by Billy Strayhorn
“Take the ‘A’ Train” was Duke Ellington‘s signature anthem – the opening track to nearly all of his bands’ performances. It’s the sound most associated with Ellington’s name, although its most famous cover by Ella Fitzgerald is perhaps even more iconic. Today the tune is beloved and familiar, but it was almost never written in the first place. The song was originally composed by Billy Strayhorn, a teenager who Ellington hired to compose songs when Ellington himself was too wrapped up to begin any new tracks on his own. Legend has it that Strayhorn thought of the song while attending a party, and scrambled to write down the lyrics, before deciding it felt derivative and tossing it in the trash can. Ellington’s son discovered it there and resurrected it. The song was brought to life and quickly became a smash hit.
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7. “What’s Goin’ On” by Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye had to put up a fight for his label to release “What’s Goin’ On” – both the title single and the album. It was a big shift from Gaye’s previous assembly line love songs, which had made him famous. Gaye was at a crossroads in his personal life and career and was no longer interested in writing love songs. Gaye’s brother had recently returned from Vietnam a different person – his entire personality seemed tainted and damaged. At the same time, Gaye’s marriage was faltering and he was grieving the loss of Tammi Terrell, his beloved duet partner. While facing so much tragedy in his personal life, he also found himself becoming absorbed by the harrowing global and national headlines – from the shootings at Kent State to the Vietnam War to the rising poverty levels. He wanted to create something that mattered – that spoke to the state of the world he found himself in. His label, however, had no interest in risking the big profits that came from Gaye’s original sound, and refused to release “What’s Goin’ On” until Gaye threatened never to record with them again if they didn’t. The glaring success of Gaye’s album and single proved that this was one risk worth taking.
“Like a Rolling Stone” is considered by many to be the greatest song of all time – influencing an entire generation of rock stars, including Bruce Springsteen (who said the song inspired him to “take on the whole world” through his music). Before the iconic song was recorded and released, though, Dylan compared it to “vomit.” He wrote it in a long, dizzying draft while touring around Europe, but claimed that “when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much.” He finally finished the piece and recorded eleven versions that were each deemed “unusable” because Dylan was singing so fast that the instruments couldn’t keep up. They finally mastered the sound and the song was released to near instant success.
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9. “Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery
Cover of “Anne of Green Gables” (1909)
When L.M. Montgomery first envisioned a little orphan girl named Anne, she was planning to write a series of short stories to be published in the Sunday paper. After beginning to write, however, she fell in love with the big-hearted character, her adoptive parents, and her little town of Green Gables. She decided to devote an entire novel to Anne instead. Montgomery considered “Anne of Green Gables” to be a “labor of love” and the most enjoyable story she had ever written. She eagerly sent the draft to publisher after publisher, just to be rejected over and over again. Montgomery later wrote in her diary that after the fourth or fifth rejection she “put ‘Anne’ away in an old hat box in the clothes room.” Montgomery forgot about the book for a year, until she was rummaging for winter clothes and rediscovered it in its hiding place. She decided to send it out one last time – and this time, a publisher finally bit.
Bibliography:
*, N. (2022, May 25). Publishing Anne of Green Gables: How L.M. Montgomery persevered. Literary Ladies Guide. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/l-m-montgomery-on-finding-a-home-for-anne-of-green-gables-just-one-more-try/
Brockell, G. (2019, December 25). Girls adored ‘little women.’ Louisa May Alcott did not. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/25/girls-adored-little-women-louisa-may-alcott-did-not/
designer, A. R. is a. (n.d.). Jazz standards : Take the ‘A’ train. JAQUO Lifestyle Magazine. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from http://jaquo.com/jazz-standards-take-the-a-train/
Greene, A. (2019, June 18). Bob Dylan recorded ‘like a rolling stone’ 50 Years Ago Today. Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-recorded-like-a-rolling-stone-50-years-ago-today-65422/
How Stephen King almost threw away his most successful book. Fully Booked. (2021, October 28). Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://fully-booked.ca/editorials/stephen-king-carrie-almost-threw-away/
Inside rent by Scott Miller. (n.d.). Retrieved July 10, 2022, from http://www.newlinetheatre.com/rentchapter.html
Magazine, S. (2014, April 1). How the Mississippi River made Mark Twain… and vice versa. Smithsonian.com. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-mississippi-river-made-mark-twain-and-vice-versa-180950193/
Mahler, J. (2015, July 12). The invisible hand behind Harper Lee’s ‘to kill a Mockingbird’. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/books/the-invisible-hand-behind-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird.html#:~:text=One%20winter%20night%2C%20as%20Charles,up%20the%20pages%2C%E2%80%9D%20Mr.
Moon, T. (2000, August 7). The story of Marvin Gaye’s ‘what’s going on’. NPR. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2000/08/07/1080444/npr-100-whats-going-on
Reif, R. (1991, February 26). Twain Manuscript Resolves Huck Finn mysteries. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/26/books/twain-manuscript-resolves-huck-finn-mysteries.html
Tommasini, A. (1996, March 17). THEATHER;the seven-year odyssey that led to ‘rent’. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/17/theater/theather-the-seven-year-odyssey-that-led-to-rent.html
Winerip, M. (2012, January 30). Mulberry Street may fade, but ‘Mulberry street’ shines on. The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/education/dr-seuss-book-mulberry-street-turns-75.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Pop star Shakira was all smiles as she was spotted in public shortly before it emerged that she could be jailed for up to eight years if she is found guilty of an alleged £12million tax fraud.
Spanish prosecutors are also demanding a £19million fine for the 45-year-old singer, who is charged with six counts of defrauding the state between 2012 and 2014.
She was seen last week arriving with the two boys she shares with the footballer Gerard Pique at a Mexican resort in Cabo, disembarking her private plane with the help of Primesky – a premium and private concierge service for high-end travelers – employees.
The charges come after the Colombian-born mother-of-two rejected an out-of-court settlement that would have involved her admitting wrongdoing.
She has already repaid the money she allegedly owes the treasury, along with interest believed to total £3million.
The charges were contained in an indictment submitted by prosecutors to the investigating court near Barcelona, and made public for the first time today.
Shakira – full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll – is accused of pretending to live abroad and using a complex offshore corporate structure to avoid tax.
She is accused of using the illegal arrangement from 2012 and 2014, when she was in a relationship with Pique, who lives and plays in Barcelona.
Shakira, 45, is all smiles as she is spotted in Cabo with her two boys last Friday, despite a potential eight year jail sentence hanging over her head
She was seen near the location of a private jet in the Mexican resort town of Cabo on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula
Shakira (pictured in Mexico this week) is facing up to eight year in jail in Spain for allegedly dodging £12million in tax between 2012 and 2014
The couple – who have two children together – split earlier this year amid allegations in local media that Pique had been unfaithful.
Shakira is said to have tried to rekindle the relationship twice but was rebuffed by Pique, before the pair confirmed their separation.
Despite the split, the couple seem to have remained on civil terms and have been seen attending their children’s sports games together.
A spokesman for Shakira said: ‘Shakira has always cooperated and abided by the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as an individual and a taxpayer, and faithfully following the counsel of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a prestigious and globally recognized tax firm.
‘Unfortunately, the Spanish Tax Office, which loses one out of every two lawsuits with its taxpayers, continues to violate her rights and pursue yet another baseless case.
‘Shakira is confident that her innocence will be proven by the end of the judicial process.’
Shakira, previously a tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full tax resident in Spain in 2015.
Official residents in Spain pay Spanish taxes on their worldwide income.
People who spent more than 183 days in a given calendar year in Spain are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
Tax inspectors spent more than a year checking up on Shakira, even visiting her favourite hairdressers in Barcelona and checking her social media to try to show she spent most of the three years in dispute in Spain.
They concluded she had spent 242 days in Spain in 2012, 212 days in 2013 and 243 days in the country in 2014.
The report prosecutors submitted along with their criminal complaint alleged the time she spent out of Spain were ‘sporadic absences’ linked to work commitments.
Shakira has denied any wrongdoing.
The alleged fraud took place around the time Shakira moved to Barcelona to live with partner Gerard Pique, who plays football in the city
A spokesman for the signer said: ‘Shakira has always cooperated and abided by the law, demonstrating impeccable conduct as an individual and a taxpayer, and faithfully following the counsel of PriceWaterhouse Coopers, a prestigious and globally recognized tax firm.
‘Unfortunately, the Spanish Tax Office, which loses one out of every two lawsuits with its taxpayers, continues to violate her rights and pursue yet another baseless case.
‘Shakira is confident that her innocence will be proven by the end of the judicial process.’
A date for the trial has not yet been set with some analysts predicting an eleventh-hour deal could still be struck before Shakira is asked to take the stand.
The singer and Pique announced they had split in May after 11 years together amid unconfirmed reports the footballer had cheated.
The former couple are said to have spent the last few weeks negotiating the future of their two children because Shakira wants to move to Miami with them.
The Twitterverse, once again, has targeted the wrong Will Smith.
Will Smith, the famous actor who slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars this year, issued a new apology Friday for his behavior at the awards show, revealing that Rock is “not ready to talk.”
Whereupon the owner of the verified Twitter @willsmith account braced for a new onslaught of attacks, attaboys, hot takes and other misdirected commentary, as has happened routinely over the years (even though his Twitter profile pic is of a white guy with a ginger beard).
Note: The actor Will Smith does not have an official Twitter account; he posted his apology video Friday to YouTube and Instagram. The Twitter @willsmith account belongs to a man by the same same who is a podcaster and PR rep for independent game studio Stray Bombay.
On Friday, game-industry Will Smith again tried to clear up matters — possibly to no avail — and said he had to turn off direct messages on Twitter following what one presumes were scores of vitriolic texts delivered to notthatwillsmith (as he points out in his bio).
“Just want to make it clear to everyone that I’m apologizing for nothing. Also, I had to close my DMs,” gamer guy Will Smith tweeted.
Just want to make it clear to everyone that I’m apologizing for nothing.
Following the slap, @willsmith tweeted: “Real talk, I’m not the person you’re upset/happy with. I make podcasts and video games for a living. At the risk of making people pissed off at me instead of that other guy, the world would be a better place if we stopped answering words with violence.”
Here’s a trailer for the BBC’s Sean Bean and Nicola Walker-starring romantic drama Marriage from Mum creator Stefan Golaszewski.
The show follows Ian and Emma as they negotiate the ups and downs of their 30-year marriage. Across four episodes, they will be seen dealing with the insecurities, ambiguities, hopes and fears that are all part of being with the same person for decades.
Show is produced by Jack Thorne’s Help indie The Forge and Golaszewski’s The Money Men.
Bean comes fresh off the back of winning a BAFTA for Jimmy McGovern’s Time, while Walker’s BBC drama The Split recently aired its third and final season.
Marriage also stars James Bolam (New Tricks, The Likely Lads) as Gerry, Emma’s father, Henry Lloyd-Hughes (The Inbetweeners, Ragdoll) as Jamie, Emma’s boss and Chantelle Alle (We Are Lady Parts, Mood) as Jessica, Ian and Emma’s daughter.
Executive producers are Tommy Bulfin for the BBC, Beth Willis and George Faber for The Forge and Richard Laxton and Golaszewski for The Money Men. Producer is Lyndsay Robinson (Him And Her, Mum). All3Media International represents the drama globally.
Variety has learned exclusively that Hutchison, in addition to showrunning, will also write and executive produce on the series, which is based on the Charlie Jane Anders novel of the same name. It was reported as being in development at Amazon in September 2021.
Hutchison most recently worked as an executive producer on the highly-anticipated Amazon series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” She is best known for her time as a writer and executive producer on four seasons of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” spinoff series “Better Call Saul.” She was also a writer on “Breaking Bad” prior to that, and worked with “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan on “The X-Files.” Her other writing and producing credits include the FX series “The Strain.” She began her career as a writers’ and producers’ assistant on shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Star Trek Enterprise,” and “Mad Men.”
She is repped by CAA.
“Victories Greater Than Death” follows Tina, a teenager and keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon. Tina can’t wait for it to activate, leave home, and chase her dreams. But she’s stuck waiting, until one day, destiny calls.
Jordan and Elizabeth Raposo will executive produce for Outlier Society, with Anders, Dan Halstead, and Nate Miller also executive producing. Amazon’s Kevin Jarzynski is overseeing the project.
Outlier Society is currently under an overall television and first-look film deal at Amazon. Under the deal, the company is currently developing a limited series about boxing legend and activist Muhammed Ali called “The Greatest.” Film projects on the company’s slate include “Static Shock,” “You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty,” “Thomas Crown Affair,” and “Red Wolf,” while TV projects include “David Makes Man” at OWN and “61st Street” at AMC. The company is also producing “Creed 3,” in which Jordan will star while also making his directorial debut. It is expected to launch in theaters in March 2023.
Outlier Society is repped by M88, WME, Rogers & Cowan PMK and attorney Greg Slewett.
Bernard Cribbins, a British actor who had roles on “Doctor Who” and “Fawlty Towers” and whose contributions to children’s programs delighted young audiences over a career that spanned seven decades, has died. He was 93.
In a statement, the management and talent agency, Gavin Barker Associates, confirmed the death but did not say when or where he died.
Mr. Cribbins worked well into his 90s in a career that influenced some of the best-known comedy, drama and children’s programs in Britain. He first acted at the age of 14 in his hometown, Oldham, England, just outside Manchester, in a repertory company there, beginning a period of stage work that led to roles in television and film, for which he became widely known.
For three decades Mr. Cribbins was regularly featured on “Jackanory,” a BBC children’s program in which an actor read books to young audiences. The program, which ran between 1965 and 1996, sought to arouse an interest in reading in children.
In one of his more than 100 readings, of “The Wizard of Oz,” in 1970, Mr. Cribbins infused the voices of Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard and other characters with a full dramatic repertoire of whispers, tremors and shrieks.
When he was awarded a BAFTA Special Award in 2009, he grew serious in an interview when asked about the hugely popular “Jackanory” and how it had influenced young audiences.
“All you have to do,” he said, “is look down the lens, find one child, and just talk to that child. And you pull them in.”
“It really works, and you think all over the country there will be little kids saying, ‘Just a minute, Mum,’ and they will be looking. And the stories, as I said before, were wonderful,” he said.
Mr. Cribbins was born in Oldham on Dec. 29, 1928. After his early stage career, he narrated “The Wombles,” a 1970s animated television program created from a series of books about underground creatures, and joined the cast of the science-fiction TV series “Doctor Who” from 2007 to 2010. He had earlier appeared in a “Doctor Who” movie, “Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.,” in 1966.
In the TV series, which the producer Russell T Davies revived in 2005, Mr. Cribbins had a recurring role as the grandfather of one of Doctor Who’s companions, Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate. In an Instagram post on Thursday, Mr. Davies wrote that Mr. Cribbins “loved being in ‘Doctor Who.’ He said, ‘Children are calling me grandad in the street!’”
Mr. Davies wrote that Mr. Cribbins had once “turned up with a suitcase full of props, just in case, including a rubber chicken.” He added, “He’d phone up and say, ‘I’ve got an idea! What if I attack a Dalek with a paintball gun?!’ Okay, Bernard, in it went!”
Mr. Cribbins also starred in the 1970 film “The Railway Children,” based on the children’s book by Edith Nesbit. A review in The New York Times called it “a perfectly lovely little British movie” and said Mr. Cribbins was “excellent” as the stationmaster Albert Perks in a “simple tale about three children who putter around a Yorkshire village, sharing a loving kindness learned at home.”
In 1975, Mr. Cribbins appeared in an episode of the comedy series “Fawlty Towers,” starring John Cleese as the hapless manager of a seaside hotel. Mr. Cribbins played a guest mistaken by Mr. Cleese’s character for a hotel inspector, who is trying to order a cheese salad for lunch and instead is served an omelet.
A list of survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Cribbins’s wife, the actor Gillian McBarnet, died last October.
In the interview after receiving the BAFTA award in 2009, Mr. Cribbins and his “Doctor Who” co-star Ms. Tate spoke about how quickly time had gone by during his long career.
“I can remember a lot of things with total clarity, total recall,” he said, before adding jokingly, “I’ve got stories I haven’t even thought of yet.”
Pascal also praised body double actors Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder for doing the real “heavy lifting” for the role.
Pedro Pascal admitted he may have been a little tentative about just how much success “The Mandalorian” could find among “Star Wars” fans.
The “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” actor and “Narcos” alum leads the hit Disney+ series, which debuted in 2019. Pascal plays bounty hunter Din Djarin, who saves Baby Yoda and ventures on quests throughout the galaxy. Due to its unique plot and episodic structure (plus viral love for Baby Yoda), “The Mandalorian” was a breakthrough for the “Star Wars” canon.
“I think it was so easy to trust how much Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni love ‘Star Wars’ and [how they’re] taking that love and developing new ways of telling ‘Star Wars’ stories,” Pascal told Entertainment Weekly of signing on to the role. “That’s a big safety net. But there were things, like, will this character be compelling? Will people want to follow him through these adventures? Will the richness of this parent-child relationship really reach everyone?”
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He added, “So to see all of that surpass expectation is really exciting.”
Pascal also gushed over the two other actors who don Mando’s beskar armor, John Wayne’s grandson Brendan Wayne and Pascal’s frequent collaborator Lateef Crowder.
“It’s been a collaborative process from the beginning,” Pascal said. “I was given the opportunity to establish physical specificity in some ways at the start of the show, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t observing and picking up from what they’re doing and handing over so much of it as well. They do the heavy lifting.”
Pascal and Crowder worked together on “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” and “Triple Frontier” prior to “The Mandalorian.”
“When I knew he was going to be putting on the suit for this, I was like, ‘Yes! I’m gonna look so cool!’” Pascal joked.
While Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” is set for a February 2023 debut, upcoming Disney+ series “Ahsoka,” “Andor,” and “Skeleton Crew” build out the “Star Wars” episodic installments on the heels of prequel series “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
The announcement was made at San Diego Comic-Con and came several weeks after the conclusion of the show’s third season.
Following the Soviet Union’s victory over the United States in the first crewed Moon landing, the series dramatizes an alternate history that shows what would have happened if the global space competition had never ended.
In a different version of events, Soviet astronaut Alexei Leonov set foot on the Moon for the first time in 1969. Although this result destroys NASA’s morale, it also spurs an American drive to catch up. The United States is compelled to keep up by training women and minorities who were generally excluded from the earliest decades of U.S. space exploration because the Soviet Union highlighted diversity by adding a woman in future landings. The second and third seasons, each ten years apart, are set in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.
ComingSoon spoke with Xochitl Gomez about her role as America Chavez in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Gomez talked about advice that she received from Sir Patrick Stewart, having merchandise of her character, and how meaningful the film’s representation is.
“In the film, the MCU unlocks the Multiverse and pushes its boundaries further than ever before,” reads the synopsis. “Journey into the unknown with Doctor Strange, who, with the help of mystical allies both old and new, traverses the mind-bending and dangerous alternate realities of the Multiverse to confront a mysterious new adversary.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.
Tyler Treese: Tell me a bit about the fan response. When you’re entering the MCU, millions are reaching out. It has to be so exciting, especially for your fellow Mexican-Americans to see that representation on screen.
Xochitl Gomez: Yeah, it’s really heartwarming. I did have a little bit of that experience with Dawn [Schafer, Gomez’s character in The Baby-Sitters Club]. Young girls would just reach out to me and tell me that they felt seen and honestly just leave the most sweet messages that would make me cry sometimes. But obviously, I’m just so happy that I get to bring that representation to a bigger, larger scale. Obviously, Marvel is so much bigger, and I’d never really had that experience until America was out in the world. When girls would come up to me in the middle of the street and literally be shaking and like cry and just want to hug me because they feel like so seen and feel so happy that I’m there representing them … that’s just such a special feeling. No words can really describe that.
Marvel is so much bigger than the films too. It has to be surreal, walking into a store and you see yourself on a t-shirt. There are toys being made of you. How wild is it seeing all this merchandise?
Honestly, I love it. I own lots of it just because it means so much to me. I remember when I first saw the mock-up of the action figure on set, we were doing reshoots and Richie Palmer had the mock-up of the action figure on his computer. I saw it and Benedict Cumberbatch was sitting there. We were both looking at him and he was approving his and saying things that were wrong or right or needed tweaking, and when I saw mine, I literally just cried. Tears were coming down my face because I was so happy that there was an action figure of me and that I could buy it, and I could buy multiple! And it’s just … it’s me! So it means so much to me.
America’s such a likable and great character. When you see the character, what similarities do you see between yourself and America?
We’re both very optimistic. When everything’s kind of just coming down on you, people are hunting you down or something like that, you persevere during tough times. And that’s something that I think we both do.
You have a martial arts background. How much does that help when doing more stunts and filming?
It helps so much. I didn’t even realize … well, I’m sort of new, but I didn’t really fully understand that the type of martial arts I do, Wushu, is the best for doing stunts. If you’re doing stunt training or if you’re someone who does stunts, Wushu is probably the best form of martial arts, just because it really helps you, especially with all your muscles that you have to do and all the weird stances that are just … all I can say is that Wushu has definitely helped me, especially when I was first starting training for America. I was like, “what are these new things?” Especially with wires. I was like, “how do I do this? I don’t know how to do all this!” And I started Kickbox training and stuff. I realized the similarities between my martial arts training and all the stunt training. It’s really helpful to have it all under your belt when you start because when you first … I don’t even know how it would feel to just kind of be pushed into it, but that would be really scary.
America goes through so much in that first film and at the end, she’s staying on Earth-616. You’re learning magic, and everyone’s wondering what the future holds. Where do you view America at mentally at the end of that first film? She seems to be in a good place.
Yeah, she does. I mean, we see her and she’s left at Kamar-Taj and she’s practicing mystic arts. That’s a different form of magic than her own powers, but I think leaving her at Kamar-Taj is the best, since there’s Wong, and she’ll have some discipline and some security and just a place to call home. During the entire movie, we found out more about her parents and she hadn’t been with them for a while.
Between you, the two Benedicts, obviously Elizabeth Olsen, what kind of advice were you given by these Marvel vets?
I got a few little bits of advice. Patrick Stewart gave me advice, Lizzy and Wong. One thing that really stuck with me was something that Patrick Stewart said, to really pay it forward and really welcome people that are entering … especially with the Marvel universe, that’s what he was doing. He was welcoming me to this craziness and I truly felt welcomed. He’s just such a beautiful soul and such a caring person that he really made me feel like I was a part of the Marvel family, you know? And what’s better than Sir Patrick Stewart just talking to you in general? It was just really crazy.
There’s just such a rich history in the MCU and so many exciting characters within it. What heroes do you want to see America interact with in the future?
I think Loki could be really fun, just because he’s so mischievous and you never know what he’s going to do, and obviously the background with Loki and America from the comics … I think that could be fun to explore. But also, Kang. I’m excited to see what they do for him and what madness he unleashes. I think it could be really cool to see America in a Kang project, just to see how that goes.
The MCU has been so huge, so I’m sure you were a fan yourself before this. So what were your favorite projects before you became a part of the MCU?
This was actually like right when I started, when we were filming … well actually, right before we started filming, WandaVision was coming out, and that was my favorite TV show. It still is, along with Loki. Those are my favorite.
And then you got to build off that storyline, so that makes it even more special.
It really was. Each episode, especially with the sitcoms, that really made me interested, and also just because Elizabeth is so good.
Television has provided unrealistic standards of life’s many truths for as long as it’s existed — from being able to hang out in a coffee shop during the work day to going on thousands of dates in a single year. But one of the most bothersome standards TV has warped audiences into thinking is what kind of apartment New Yorkers today can realistically afford.
Millions of residents live in the five boroughs, and more people move there every day with dreams of getting a 212 area code and a mailing address in the big city. If only they knew what they were actually in for. The 15 TV characters ranked below lease or own apartments that have become characters in and of themselves, leading New York natives and newbies alike to think they can afford an apartment like Monica Geller’s from “Friends” or Hannah Horvath’s from “Girls.” So, exactly how fictional are these fictional TV apartments?
TheWrap has ranked the most realistic contemporary TV apartments to the least realistic apartments, featuring favorites like billionaire Logan Roy’s penthouse abode in “Succession” to TV writer and producer Liz Lemon’s digs in “30 Rock.”
15. Logan Roy, “Succession”
As the most realistic apartment on the list, Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) is also the most extravagant and ostentatious. Of course, the Roy family is not your typical family. They’re regularly shown taking helicopters or private jets to their various homes around the world, including Season 3’s Italian villa. The Roys simply exude wealth. Therefore, the patriarch’s main home, a luxurious Manhattan penthouse, is the most realistic home based strictly on who Logan is. As a billionaire media mogul, having a $23 million Manhattan penthouse is just a rite of passage.
14. Ilana Wexler, “Broad City”
Contrary to what her co-workers might think, Ilana Wexler (Ilana Glazer) does technically work. Picking up a paycheck from various odd jobs and side gigs – be that it babysitting gigs, a Deals! sales associate or cleaning strangers’ homes – Ilana does live within her means. A Gowanus, Brooklyn, resident with a roommate, Ilana lives in one of the most reasonable units on this list. It’s a bit cramped, slightly messy and there’s limited space for more than two people in the living room.
13. Charlotte York, “Sex and the City”
Charlotte York’s (Kristin Davis) apartment is realistic by New York standards because, well, she won it in her divorce. The Park Avenue penthouse has become a staple in the “Sex and the City” world, and it’s thanks to Charlotte’s Season 3 arc where the former art gallery curator married and divorced the old-moneyed cardiologist Trey MacDougal (Kyle MacLachlan). Trey gifts Charlotte the apartment after their divorce since he was unable to give her the family she’s always “dreamed of.” Charlotte makes the apartment her home throughout the series, the films and the “And Just Like That…” reboot.
12. Will Truman, “Will & Grace”
Will Truman (Eric McCormack) is a corporate lawyer who lives on the Upper West Side. His home because the main locale for he and his friends — Grace Adler (Debra Messing), Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes) and Karen Walker (Megan Mullaly) — to come for breakfast, a night in or even a prolonged stay. Will’s two-bedroom apartment is one of the more lavish apartments on this list, but it still remainsrealistic for the era, location and character’s profession.
11. Don Draper, “Mad Men”
Formerly a father living in the suburbs, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his new wife Megan (Jessica Paré) move to an apartment on Park Avenue in New York City. As an advertising Creative Director and Junior Partner of Sterling Cooper & Partners, Don could shell out a few more dollars on a beautiful Manhattan apartment, but since the show’s conclusion, NYC real estate agents have revealed Don really couldn’t live in the magnificent mid-century apartment today.
10. The Humphrey Family, “Gossip Girl”
“Gossip Girl” may be a New York–set series that mostly takes place on the Upper East Side, but it detoured to Brooklyn with the Humphrey family. Located in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, Dan’s (Penn Badgley) family loft requires a slight stretching of the imagination. Dan and Jenny (Taylor Momsen) reside in the three-bedroom unit with their father Rufus (Matthew Settle), a former musician and current gallery owner. While the spacious apartment wasn’t as luxurious as Serena van der Woodsen’s (Blake Lively) or Blair Waldorf’s (Leighton Meester) on the Upper East Side, its location and size did leave some viewers wondering if a divorced dad could afford it while taking care of two teenagers. But the Humphreys’ home mostly did make sense, given the success of their father’s former and present careers.
9. Liz Lemon, “30 Rock”
As a former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” Tina Fey brought some realism to “30 Rock” and her character Liz Lemon. While the entertainment industry sitcom rolls out some of the most outrageous plot lines, Liz’s apartment is one of the few elements that teeters on the edge of realism. Like many of the characters on this list, she lives on the Upper West Side, providing a realistic neighborhood for the comedy writer. But when Season 4 features Liz buying the unit above to her current place, that’s when the line of the character’s finances becomes a bit blurry.
8. Jerry, “Seinfeld”
Jerry’s apartment in “Seinfeld” also teeters on the edge of realism. As a successful stand-up comedian, the reality of Jerry Seinfeld’s life behind the camera seemed to slip into the fictional world of “Seinfeld.” The character isn’t quite starving-artist material, but even as a semi-famous comedian on-the-rise, performers at that level typically live in quainter spaces before making it big. Then again, if Kramer could live there, Jerry could definitely swing it.
7. Mindy Lahiri, “The Mindy Project”
New York City OB-GYN Mindy Lahiri (Mindy Kaling) lived in one of the most colorful sitcom apartments in television history. And as colorful as Mindy’s apartment was matches its lack of realism. The one-bedroom apartment in a Manhattan Brownstone has both a walk-in closet and a staircase that leads to another unit. Kaling knowingly created an unrealistic “bachelorette pad,” and provides cheeky quips about the unreasonable NYC housing market early on in the series. By further introducing the apartments of other characters, including Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) and Jody Kimball-Kinney (Garret Dillahunt), the rom-com sitcom provides a picture-perfect world of expansive and well-decorated lower-Manhattan homes.
6. Oliver Putnam, “Only Murders in the Building”
Yes, rent-controlled apartments are the caveat to some of these units, but Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) seems unable to make his monthly payments at the Arconia. The amateur detective (and “retired” theater director) has lived on the Upper West Side for decades; however, he’s positioned himself as a bit of a late-stage struggling artist. The theater director has failed to helm a successful production, despite repeatedly receiving investments from his neighbors, including Teddy Dimas (Nathan Lane). While Charles-Haden Savage (Steve Martin) starred on a successful network TV show and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez) resides in her late Aunt’s home, Oliver’s place in the Arconia is constantly put up for questioning — even facilitating a possible criminal motive in Season 2.
5. Ted Mosby, “How I Met Your Mother”
Ted Mosby (Josh Randor) is an architect-turned-professor who lives on the Upper West Side for the duration of the “How I Met Your Mother” series run. Ted’s apartment has a rotating door, with the main characters, Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), and Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) consistently occupying the two-bedroom unit. With roommates, Ted could possibly swing the rent, but given his roommates’ rocky employment histories, it doesn’t seem as likely. Ted’s apartment was large enough to house a telephone booth, entertain a fencing duel and to host many, many parties. “How I Met Your Mother” fueled young 20-somethings moving to the big city with very unrealistic expectations for what their first apartment might look like — but the latest spin-off “How I Met Your Father” definitely nails the realistic aspect of NYC living.
4. Carrie Bradshaw, “Sex and the City”
Fans and savvy NYC residents have long refuted the plausibility of Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) Upper East Side apartment. As one of the only characters to actually name the price of her rent (around $700), it’s extremely unlikely she’d have found a space to live alone in that neighborhood for that price, even when considering rent-controlled opportunities.
3. Hannah Horvath “Girls”
Venturing back to Brooklyn, Hannah Horvath’s (Lena Dunham) two-bedroom apartment in Greenpoint, which she shares with Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams), stands as another writer living in a completely unrealistic apartment given the location, era and character. Hannah is very open about her finances and is willing to admit when she hits financial struggles – which makes Hannah’s fictional Brooklyn fantasy utopia is just that: a fantasy. Contradicting the fantasy of Hannah and Marnie’s shared apartment, Marnie’s Chinatown “s–tbox” studio poses as the most realistic home on the HBO series.
2. Monica Geller “Friends”
Yes, technically, Monica Geller (Courtney Cox) from “Friends” inherited her iconic, rent-controlled apartment from her grandmother – but even so, the unit stands as one of the most famous unrealistic homes across film and TV. Monica was a line cook, then unemployed, then founder of a short-lived catering company, and eventually a chef. But she still managed to live comfortably in a massive NYC apartment in a trendy downtown neighborhood. The Greenwich Village space boasts two large bedrooms and a huge living room and joint kitchen; who watched “Friends” and didn’t dream of jumping onto Monica’s lease?
1. Elliott Goss, “Search Party”
Although the cult-comedy “Search Party” is a satire, the absurdity of the show doesn’t stop with the characters or the storylines and of course extends into the main characters’ homes. More specifically, unemployed scam artist Elliott Goss (John Early) who lives in Brooklyn near his old college friends Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat), Portia Davenport (Meredith Hagner) and Drew Gardner (John Reynolds). Even while professing that he “doesn’t enjoy working,” Elliott has a number of on-again, off-again jobs through the series’ five seasons. He begins “Search Party” as the founder of a charity called Water Bottles for Africa, then he receives a book deal, then he becomes a right-wing news pundit – but he’s never able to stay with this gigs and actually build a career. Therefore, spending frivolously with no consistent paychecks and living in an enormous Brooklyn apartment with a staircase and enough room for Portia, Drew or Dory to stay over as-needed is one of the least plausible housing scenarios in television today.
An unnamed woman who sued Bob Dylan last year, alleging he sexually abused her in 1965 when she was 12 years old, withdrew her suit yesterday. The development came a day after Dylan’s attorneys claimed she destroyed key evidence in the case, “irretrievably” compromising the lawsuit’s integrity. The accuser faced a $50,000 sanction for the violation and the suit can’t be refiled.
The voluntary dismissal comes a few days after the accuser fired her attorneys during discovery.
The accuser, who goes by J.C., had alleged that Dylan sexually abused her between April and May of 1965 when Dylan was either 23 or 24 years old (Dylan’s birthday is on May 24) at the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York City. As per the original complaint, J.C. alleged that Dylan “exploited his status as a musician by grooming J.C. to gain her trust and to obtain control over her as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse J.C.”
The suit also claimed that Dylan gave J.C. drugs and alcohol and that she “sustained physical and psychological injuries” and continues to suffer to this day as a result of the alleged abuse.
Dylan experts, including biographers Clinton Heylin and Anne Margaret Daniel, noted inconsistencies with the timing of the alleged incident, saying that the music icon wasn’t in New York City at the time.
“This case is over. It is outrageous that it was ever brought in the first place,” Dylan’s lead attorney, Orin Snyder, said in a statement to Billboard. “We are pleased that the plaintiff has dropped this lawyer-driven sham and that the case has been dismissed with prejudice.”
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy!
For Reverse Shot, Matthew Eng writes about Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love and about the questions that may or may not linger on in our hearts much after the film ends.
In Dosa’s film, their lives end with the suddenness of a candle’s flame being snuffed, leaving behind “a million questions,” though not the ones we might have initially assumed. A million questions. Perhaps my mind has been trained by tabloids and true-crime serials to anticipate the sensational in a deceptive phrase like that, which knowingly plays on our thirst for the unsolved, the clandestine. These questions, though, belong not to us, the viewers, but to the Kraffts, who wondered ceaselessly about the world and its mysterious workings, the secrets contained in the crusts of the earth.
Dear Producer’s Jennifer A. Haire and Gilana M. Lobel make a case for why office PAs make for the best producers. An enlightening read before you crew up for your next doc!
The office PA is an unsung hero on a production; without them everything on the show can seem exponentially harder. The office PA is the one filling in all the gaps, making sure the little stuff gets done so that everyone else can focus on bringing the story to the screen. Are the offices unlocked? Has the coffee been made? Is the production meeting set up? Has lunch been ordered? Have the schedules been copied? Has the cooler for the scout been prepped? Who’s answering the phones? Are the sides done? Did the hard drive make it to editorial? The office PA does ALL THE THINGS that need to get done.
Filmmaker and Impact Producer Jin Yoo-Kim writes for the Firelight Blog, sharing her “reflections on her own challenges, strategies, and experiences of creating and distributing work during periods of social transformation.”
I saw organizers cry after watching meaningful documentaries. Surrounded by movement builders, cultural workers, and young people, I started to see beyond my own pity, anger, and self-doubt. The Lab had become something more than a retreat to talk about the films’ potential for social transformation. In just one weekend, I was internally transformed, again. A film’s message can extend beyond the four walls of a theater, can create a domino effect across the nation, and can truly transform the way we see each other, the way we embrace each other, the way we build with each other.
RogerEbert.com’s Marya E. Gates interviews Ethan Hawke about The Last Movie Stars, his docuseries on the marriage of Hollywood superstars Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, which is streaming on HBO Max.
We’re only as good as our generation, right? I mean what our audiences are interested in determines a lot about what movies get made and don’t get made. Paul and Joanne are defined by those filmmakers they worked with. You’d see her talking about Shirley MacLaine or talking about Jane Fonda and you realize we don’t live in a vacuum. We’re all impacting each other all the time. Just like this generation now. Billy Crudup, and Sam Rockwell, they’re huge inspirations to me. We’re in this together.
Over at The New York Times, Maya Salam speaks to Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, the filmmakers of the Sundance-premiering Aftershock—about the high maternal mortality rates within Black communities—which is now screening theatrically across the country.
“People are often struck by the fact that we followed fathers in this film,” Lee said. “Being able to see these men who are raising their children—who clearly love their partners very much, who are driven by a love for their partners, for their community, for their families—it’s just been really special to us as well, something we were not expecting when we first got down to make this film.”
Black maternal mortality is not just a women’s issue, Lee said: “It’s a family issue. It’s a community issue. It’s everybody’s issue.”
At IndieWire it’s never too early to start making Oscar predictions. Here is Anne Thompson making Best Documentary predictions in a “constantly updated” piece.
The Sundance Film Festival, high in the Utah Rockies, is the festival of choice for nonfiction films to be seen and discovered. Every January, Sundance launches a slew of documentary Oscar contenders, and 2022 was no different. While there are notable exceptions (Oscar winners Citizenfour, Free Solo, and My Octopus Teacher, most eventual documentary Oscar nominees launch at Sundance.
Making the Oscar shortlist for 2022 were Sundance 2021 debuts from Nanfu Wang (HBO’s China COVID exposé In the Same Breath), Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Neon’s animated immigration saga Flee), Jessica Beshir (Ethiopian khat exposé Faya Dayi), Camilla Nielsson (Greenwich Entertainment’s Zimbabwe portrait President); and rookie eventual Oscar-winner Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Searchlight/Hulu’s 1969 concert film Summer of Soul).
This year’s new pandemic era Sundance crop was equally impressive.
This annual report illuminates the number of women and members of traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups as credited directors and producers in the highest film achievement for documentary film in the United States: The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The Center for Media and Social Impact 2018 Documentary Film Diversity Report examines documentary diversity on two levels: It spotlights the films and filmmakers nominated for the Best Documentary Feature award in 2018, and it showcases the numerical reality of diversity and representation within the streaming, social media era (from 2008 to 2018). Given the unique nature of documentary film, as both creative expression and reflection of real life, the report also examines the extent to which the dominant narratives of the documentary feature nominees focus on social issues or entertainment slice-of-life stories.
Sylvain Perrier was sitting down to lunch with his wife and daughter when he saw the breaking news that Hockey Canada was embroiled in another group sexual assault investigation, this time involving the 2003 world junior team.
Turning to his wife, he began telling her in French about the allegations when his daughter interjected, asking what they were talking about.
“For a second my brain froze and I was like, ‘Oh, man, she’s only 11,’” said Perrier. “I tried to explain it but there’s no good way to explain it, right? Except being kind of forward with it. There’s no way to sugar-coat it.”
Perrier and his family had stopped at a restaurant as they drove from their home in Gatineau, Que., to Sudbury, Ont., for a hockey tournament his daughter was playing in. Because his daughter is familiar with the Hockey Canada brand, she was able to pick up that her parents were speaking about the sport that she loves.
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“So I said ‘these guys, they did bad things to this girl. And the person that was supposed to help this girl, well, they just gave her money and told her to be quiet,’” Perrier said. “That’s kind of how I explained it. I mean, I don’t know if I did a good job. But I don’t know the best way to explain a situation like that.”
Hockey Canada had its funding from the federal government and corporate sponsors paused following allegations of a sexual assault involving eight members of the 2018 men’s junior hockey team.
Analysis of the Hockey Canada hearings
Analysis of the Hockey Canada hearings
Those allegations came to light after it was reported that Hockey Canada paid out an undisclosed settlement to the complainant after she sued the organization, the Canadian Hockey League, and the eight unnamed players. The woman was seeking $3.55 million.
Hockey Canada later confirmed that it maintained a fund that drew on minor hockey membership fees to pay for uninsured liabilities, including sexual misconduct claims. The organization has since said the fund would no longer be used to pay out claims over sexual assault allegations.
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Hockey Canada announced on July 22 that another sexual assault investigation was being launched involving members of the 2003 junior team.
Erin Dixon, who has a 14-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son, said she was angry to learn that her children’s registration fees had in part gone to a fund that was used to pay off sexual misconduct claims.
“I just don’t think that’s where kids’ athletic fee should be going and, of course, that behaviour should not be tolerated or supported in any way,” said Dixon from Kingston, Ont. “It’s a bit of a hit and not surprising to hear about the second situation (2003 allegations) coming out now.
“With the amount of money they’ve got set aside I’m going to expect we’ll hear more, there’ll be more of this.”
Hockey Canada paid $8.9M to settle sexual misconduct claims since 1989
Hockey Canada paid $8.9M to settle sexual misconduct claims since 1989
Perrier said that he felt “disgusted” that his daughter’s registration fees had gone to the fund.
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“It’s hard to wrap my mind around it,” said Perrier as his daughter was on the ice at her tournament. “How can this happen? How can Hockey Canada, which is supposed to be almost a church for every girl and boy that plays hockey, then go and protect rapists and abusers? With our money?”
Dixon said she was “appalled” that some of her fees had gone to pay for sexual assault claims when there were more pressing, morally sound issues the money could have supported.
“To think that there are kids who can’t even afford to play, and part of the fees are going to this instead, it’s just wrong on so, so many levels,” said Dixon, who played competitive hockey into adulthood. “There are just so many things that are being affected here. Women’s hockey is an important one to me.
“The amount of money that’s gone into this fund could have done a lot for women’s hockey.”
The ongoing controversies whirling around Hockey Canada and its use of registration fees are forcing parents to make difficult decisions, balancing their children’s desire to play hockey against ethical considerations.
Courtney Adams, from Sudbury, had planned to enrol her four-year-old son in hockey for the first time this fall but the sexual assault allegations have made her think twice. She said that how Hockey Canada handles the next few weeks will dictate how her family proceeds.
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“If there’s no real changes in terms of the leadership group at Hockey Canada and an actual drive to change, not just the words, but the actions, there’s a chance that come September we might not be enrolling him in hockey,” said Adams, adding that it’s not just about where her money would go, but about making wise decisions as a parent.
“We also don’t like the idea of him being in a culture that allows this to happen. Yes, he’s young now, but if hockey is something that he enjoys, and he wants to stay in as he gets older, into his teen years, this is not the culture that we would want him involved in.”
All three parents said that hockey culture is in a crisis and cited several other controversies as examples.
Perrier noted that in his neighbourhood a local under-15 hockey team had to suspend six of its players and Hockey Quebec had cancel the triple-A team’s final two games of the season after allegations of racism.
Dixon, a diehard Habs fan, said she was incredibly disappointed when the Montreal Canadiens drafted defenceman Logan Mailloux after he was convicted of sexual misconduct in 2020. Mailloux had renounced his draft eligibility so he could focus on reconciliation and personal growth but was selected by Montreal in the first round anyway.
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Adams said that she was also concerned with the sexual assault trial of Vancouver Canucks forward Jake Virtanen, who was also a member of Canada’s 2016 junior team. Virtanen was found not guilty by a jury on Tuesday after Adams spoke with The Canadian Press.
“The Resort” opens with the beachy beat of David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Strange Overtones,” — strange indeed, as the song plays under an epigraph with something slightly wrong.
Two quotes wipe across the screen. First: “The pursuit to capture your past is a waste of time. The past lives in the past and is therefore non-existent in the present. Time travel has not been invented.” These words are credited to Illán Iberra’s 1978 book “El Espejo,” or “The Mirror” in English. Next, a retrraction: in 1993’s “La Desilución del Tiempo” (“The Disappointment of Time”), Iberra writes, “I made many idiotic and pretentious statements in my youth.”
Episode 1 of the Peacock adventure comedy is titled “The Disappointment of Time,” and at first, it seems that creator/showrunner Andy Siara (“Palm Springs”) is hoping to position the ideas of “The Resort” in conversation with Iberra’s work. But Iberra doesn’t exist.
“I’m glad that you researched this character,” Siara laughs. “That’s what I was hoping people would do, only to be ultimately disappointed. Which is kind of the thing about the show — everything’s just a little disappointing, and life goes on.”
Careful not to spoil anything, Siara notes that Iberra is based partially on his own readings of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, and that Iberra’s name will become important in future episodes of “The Resort.”
The series stars Cristin Milioti and William Jackson Harper as Emma and Noah, who travel to the Yucatan peninsula for the tenth anniversary of their struggling marriage, where they begin to unravel evidence about the mysterious disappearance of teenagers Sam (Skyler Gisondo) and Violet (Nina Bloomgarden) 15 years earlier. The messy love-and-adventure stories unfold in parallel timelines, both marked by the peculiarities of the Oceana Vista resort and the mysterious Frías family.
“There’s two different translations ‘La Desilución del Tiempo,’” Siara says. “One is ‘The Disappointment of Time,’ and the other is ‘The Disillusionment of Time,’ which is probably more proper, which is why the finale is called ‘The Disillusionment of Time.’”
Part of Siara’s decision to frame the series around these translations came from the nature of his writing process. He started on an early version of “The Resort” eight years ago, writing and rewriting as time went on, eventually noticing how the drastic changes he’d made to the plot mirrored drastic changes in his own life — especially becoming a father. At one point, the scripts included a running question that Siara later chose to focus on more subtly: What is the disappointment of time?
“I know I would have answered that question differently when I was 25 versus now. That can range from the very practical, literal answer — our aging, rotting bodies — or our fading memories, or just that there’s not enough time.”
The stress Siara feels about missing moments of his young children’s lives while working in television and film informs the tension Noah and Emma face in their relationship, which they handle with incompatible coping mechanisms. Emma refuses to think or talk about their problems, instead throwing herself into the mystery of Sam and Violet, while Noah makes feeble attempts at confrontation and boundary-setting but still reluctantly follows Emma wherever she goes.
And while the division between his home and work lives cause anxiety, some of the most creative ideas in “The Resort” were borne of Siara’s time at home. For example, the flips between Noah and Emma’s timeline in the present and Sam and Violet’s in the past are enabled by Emma’s discovery of Sam’s Nokia flip phone. As she scans through his texts and pictures, we seamlessly transition 15 years into the past.
“I was moving, and cleaning the garage, when I found my old Nokia,” Siara says. “I did the exact thing that Cristin’s character does: the phone didn’t work, but I found another phone in that same box and that did work, so I swapped out the SIM card and looked at what was on it. I saw, like, 400 photos that I took when my old band was on tour in 2009.”
Without realizing it, Siara spent hours looking through the phone. And after noticing how much time had passed during this “nostalgia spiral,” as he calls it, he reflected on the special feeling of unearthing memories he’d lost while also noting that too much time spent thinking about the past takes away some of the power of the present.
“Right around that same time, my first daughter was born, and we were taking different shifts in the middle of the night to feed her,” Siara continues. “I was bouncing on a yoga ball at like 3 a.m. just brainstorming, half-awake, and it was then that I decided to split up the timelines and introduce this phone.”
In Siara’s original idea for the series, Sam lived in the present and befriended Noah and Emma as they tried to reconnect to their youth, but separating their timelines allowed for a deeper exploration of place and genre. As Emma and Noah investigate Sam and Violet’s disappearance, they keep finding clues that point them towards the Fríases, a family of wealthy tailors with a yellow snake as their logo. There’s a sinister energy in the air about them, especially surrounding the black sheep Baltasar, until a flashback shows Baltasar working at the resort and quietly offering Violet’s father Murray (Nick Offerman) a complimentary bottle of Mezcal and a place to sit alone as he mourns on the anniversary of his wife’s death, before joining other staffers at a Christmas party.
“I think we all come up with ideas of what a show about a murder in Mexico should be like, and I really wanted to pull the rug out from under you,” Siara says. “We’ve been trained by what we watch on TV: ‘Oh, this must be some kind of crime family!’ When we never actually say it’s a crime family.”
After deciding to set “The Resort” in the Yucatan, it became important to Siara to subvert stereotypical expectations: “No guns on this show, and no cartels. I credit a couple of our writers, Manuel Alcalá and Mara Vargas Jackson, who talked a lot about how every time you have Mexican characters, they’re [expected to be criminals].” In Episode 4, which drops next week, Siara says there will be a “major left turn” that recontextualizes the Frias family’s role in Sam and Violet’s disappearance.
“So in this act of humanity, giving this Mezcal to Nick Offerman’s character and then going to the dance, these characters that you thought were the villains of the story might not be the bad guys at all. Or maybe they are!” he says. “But if they are … they seem like a lot of fun!”
Instagram is temporarily pausing its roll out of product features seen by some critics as attempting to emulate TikTok after the Meta-owned platform faced backlash over the changes from high-profile users like the Kardashians and Chrissy Teigen.
Some of the new test features, which rolled out to some Instagram users over the past few weeks, included a full-screen feed that emphasized short-form videos on Reels and an increase in recommended posts from accounts that users are not following. Those features will now be paused or decreased, according to a Meta spokesperson, though there is no timeframe for when they may return to the platform.
“Based on our findings and community feedback, we’re pausing the full-screen test on Instagram so we can explore other options, and we’re temporarily decreasing the number of recommendations you see in your feed so we can improve the quality of your experience,” a Meta spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. “We recognize that changes to the app can be an adjustment, and while we believe that Instagram needs to evolve as the world changes, we want to take the time to make sure we get this right.”
In the past few days, criticism of the new features came to a head after creators like Kylie and Kim Kardashian shared a post from the photographer Tati Bruening (@illumitati) to their Instagram stories that called on the company to “stop trying to be TikTok” and return to a feed that emphasized photos from friends and other accounts that users follow.
The pushback even compelled Instagram head Adam Mosseri to share a video on Tuesday explaining the changes, where he described a future of Instagram that focused on videos while “continuing to support photos.” In response to the video on Twitter, Teigen chimed in to say that users “don’t wanna make videos” and are seeing lower engagement for photos.
By Thursday, Mosseri acknowledged that users were “frustrated” and Instagram needed to take a “big step back.”
“I’m glad we took a risk — if we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Mosseri told the reporter Casey Newton for his Platformer newsletter. “But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we’ve learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we’re going to work through that.”
Variety’s annual salary report revealed the biggest moneymakers in Hollywood for film and television. Did Brad Pitt, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise or others join the $100 million dollar club?
San Diego Comic-Con has returned after two years and is underway, with the fandom buzzing about “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “Dungeons & Dragons.” Also, what should we expect from the next iteration of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Comics and other superhero movies? Will we see the first looks at “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”?
In tragic news, a crew member of NBC’s “Law & Order” was shot and killed in New York during the early hours this week. What does this mean for the future of productions shooting in the Big Apple? Will there be more hesitation?
Hosted by Variety chief correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister and senior awards editor Clayton Davis, Variety‘s “The Take,” presented by Apple TV+, is a weekly series that navigates the week’s top stories from entertainment, pop culture and media, while providing expert analysis and exclusive insight on what’s buzzing in Hollywood. Filmed in Variety‘s state-of-the-art studio in Los Angeles, new episodes are released on Fridays on Variety.com, YouTube and social media.
EXCLUSIVE: Matthew McConaughey is set to star in Dallas Sting, the fact-based story of how a group of Dallas high school girls headed to China in 1984 as the ultimate underdog and beat some of the best women’s teams from China, Australia and Italy. The film was developed by Skydance and Berlanti Schechter Productions. Apple, which has an overall deal with Skydance, has first bite at the film and I expect a deal to happen before production begins this fall in New Orleans.
Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger are producing with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Robbie Rogers. Those producers won a movie auction to acquire an unpublished article by Flinder Boyd.
In the drama scripted by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch (GLOW), McConaughey will play Bill Kinder, the coach who led the rag-tag group of Texas teens toward a Rocky-esque destiny. Long before the U.S. Women’s national team achieved Olympic and World Cup dominance, came the Dallas Sting.
In 1984, President Reagan made a concerted effort to open relations with China. China in turn invited America to send its U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to the first world championship they were holding for women’s soccer. There was only one problem – there was no U.S. Women’s Soccer Team. A nationwide search led officials to a 19-and-under league of Dallas high school girls who called themselves The Sting, after the recent Robert Redford-Paul Newman hit movie. Led by Kinder — who had no prior experience coaching soccer before he formed the team — the story of how this passionate group of young women got to China was miraculous. And what they did against the world’s top women’s teams from China, Australia and Italy — comprised of grown women who played together for years — was nothing short of a miracle.
In order to form the team nearly 40 years ago, Kinder had to get a note from a gynecologist asserting that playing soccer would not harm a woman’s reproductive organs. Texas parents who envisioned their daughters waving pom-poms at halftime soon became the cheerleaders for this eclectic mix of girls drilled to precision by a Lombardi-like coach, and became a local powerhouse. They then overcame bureaucracy just to be able to make the trip, and rose to the occasion despite being underdogs against dominant international teams. All this led by a coach who so believed in The Sting that he charged $85,000 on his credit cards for non-refundable tickets to ensure the team got to China, where many expected they would lose badly. Cue the Rocky theme music.
Skoglund, Flahive, Mensch and McConaughey are all repped by WME.
Michael playing with M&M’s on his keyboard was a cultural reset.
This may come as a complete shock because time seems unreal, but the iconic ’00s classic The Princess Diaries turns 21 years old on July 29th!
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I was 6 years old when this movie premiered and my brain can’t fully process that!!
The story follows Mia Thermopolis, a 15-year-old girl from San Francisco whose world gets flipped upside down after her estranged grandmother comes into town and informs her that she’s a real-life princess who needs to ascend to the throne of Genovia.
Of course, in classic 2000s teen comedy fashion, many hilarious shenanigans then ensue after this revelation so, to honor this legendary film, I ranked the top funniest moments that I still quote to this day. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!
21.
When Mia awkwardly dropped the priceless jewelry box Clarisse gifted her:
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I mean, who among us hasn’t dropped and almost destroyed a centuries-old family heirloom?
20.
When Mia played with her eyebrows in front of her mirror as she put off getting ready for school:
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I used to, and still do, wish I had eyebrows this magnificent.
19.
When Mia tried to angrily close her the door on her mother and grandmother, but it didn’t have the deserved effect as the “door” was a trapdoor on the ceiling:
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You’re absolutely lying if you say that you didn’t want to live in a firehouse after seeing this movie.
18.
When Clarisse expertly got herself and Mia out of legal trouble by pretending to knight the driver of the trolley they hit with their car and the cop who was about to take them downtown:
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We love a queen who uses her power for evil sometimes.
17.
When Mia hit Josh in the groin with a softball in an act of revenge after he continued to mock her just days after humiliating her on national television:
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Honestly, he deserved to be hit with a softball every day of his life!! He ASSAULTED Mia! He’s lucky he’s not in JAIL!
16.
When Vice Principal Gupta tried (see: failed) to be cool after getting word that Clarisse was on her way to her office:
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Totally chill and cool. You totally can’t see the sheer panic in her eyes.
15.
When Mia’s first dinner party with dignitaries and members of parliament included setting someone’s arm on fire, accidentally burning her mouth on a frozen palate cleanser, and breaking a crystal glass:
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After seeing how awkward Mia was up to this point, those royals are lucky to not have lost a full body part.
14.
When Joe tried to instruct Mia in the art of dance and she paid him back with an elbow to the stomach:
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This is why when someone tells you they have two left feet, believe them!!
13.
When Clarisse was trying to lead princess lessons, but Mia wasn’t taking it seriously at all:
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The amount of times I quote the “shlump” line is unreal. This scene was pure comedy gold.
12.
When Mia drove her barely-working car uphill in San Francisco and made this iconic face as she and Clarisse rolled backwards into traffic:
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I think we can all agree that we made this exact face when learning to drive.
11.
When Mia broke the finger off a statue in her grandmother’s foyer and tried to get rid of the evidence inconspicuously:
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I mean, putting it in the statute’s mouth was certainly a choice…
10.
When Michael played the keyboard with M&M’s scattered all over it, which is both unsanitary and not conducive to playing music:
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Just imagine how sticky his hands are after every set. Barf!
9.
When Mia hit her gym teacher in the head with a softball during the most iconic pitch of all time:
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This scene made me terrified to play softball in gym because I, too, can’t throw a ball straight to save my life.
8.
When Mia continuously ran across the grass at the consulate at which her grandmother resided, despite the numerous warnings, in multiple languages, to not do so:
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They were even nice enough to tell her in several different ways not to do it! How rude!
7.
When Clarisse revealed that Mia was a princess and she took it extremely well:
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An absolute banger of a line that still sets the world on fire to this day.
6.
When a classmate didn’t see Mia sitting on a bench and tried to use her as a seat:
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HOW DO YOU NOT SEE A HUMAN BEING SITTING THERE?!
5.
When Clarisse misinterpreted Mia’s invitation to see the vintage car she was waiting to purchase:
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Julie Andrews’ expression here? Priceless.
4.
When Lilly tried to catch up to Mia and Michael as they made their way to school, and she hilariously dissed two other classmates:
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I mean, in Lilly’s defense, why would you stop and wait for someone you don’t even know? LOL!
3.
When Paolo tried to untangle Mia’s thick, frizzy hair and it resulted in a brush becoming collateral damage:
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As someone with curly hair, this scene always hits a little too close to home.
2.
When Mia tried to give Joe a nickname and he shut it down immediately:
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Joe: driver, security guard, and comedian.
1.
And finally, when Mia slipped and fell on the rainy bleachers, but took the pain in stride:
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Fun fact about this scene: Anne Hathaway really did fall during this take. The film’s director, Garry Marshall, thought it was “charming” so he decided to keep it, and Anne’s genuine reaction, in the final cut. This cute moment is one of the reasons this movie still endears people to this day: it’s real, honest, and hilarious.
Do you have any other moments from The Princess Diaries that always make you chuckle? Let me know in the comments!
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Fans are eager to see Wolverine join the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Daniel Radcliffe being a favorite among fans and it’s easy to see why.
When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is plenty for fans to get excited about in looking ahead to the future of the franchise but nothing has fans buzzing more than what the future has in store for one of the most iconic superhero teams of all-time: the X-Men!
After a successful run at 20th Century Fox, the X-Men finally came home to Marvel Studios in 2019 when Disney acquired the studio and the rights to its various properties, including the X-Men. Because of this, Marvel can finally introduce the X-Men into the MCU which is something that has fans extremely excited and understandably so.
The X-Men franchise is rich with incredible and beloved characters, but there is no denying the one character fans are most excited to join the MCU is Wolverine.
Following Hugh Jackman’s iconic run as the character, it’s going to be a hard role for Marvel to fill and there are countless actors fans seem to hope they might consider. Among the early favorites is Harry Potter alum Daniel Radcliffe and it’s not hard to see why after checking out this incredible fanart!
What Daniel Radcliffe could look like as Wolverine in the MCU
Although Marvel has not yet announced any X-Men casting decisions, prominent artist BossLogic gave us the chance to see what Daniel Radcliffe could look like as Wolverine if given the chance.
In the jaw-dropping art, Radcliffe transforms into Wolverine rocking the character’s signature ducktail combination, white tank top, dog tags, and adamantium claws. Radcliffe looks incredible in the image and after checking the image out it’s not hard to see why fans are eager to see the Harry Potter actor step into the role when Marvel eventually brings him into the fold.
There’s no denying Radcliffe absolutely looks the part and before anyone makes a comment about his height, the truth is that Radcliffe is actually closer to the character’s comic book height than Jackman. While Jackman stands at 6’3″, the character of Wolverine is a whole foot shorter in the comics coming in at 5’3″ which is two inches shorter than the 5’5″ Radcliffe.
Has Daniel Radcliffe been cast as Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
At this time, Marvel has not announced whether Daniel Radcliffe has been cast to play Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, it’s looking unlikely Radcliffe will be cast as the hero. There have been a number of actors linked to the role over the years including Radcliffe, but he hasn’t exactly shown interest in playing the character in the past — suggesting if Marvel came calling, he might not answer.
Is Daniel Radcliffe playing Wolverine in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
In 2019, Radcliffe fanned the flames when he jokingly announced he was going to be playing the role when reacting to rumors as part of a Wired video segment that saw actors addressing some of the most-searched questions about them.
Following his remarks, the rumor mill began running rampant with speculation that Radcliffe had confirmed he was set to play the role. The rumor gained so much traction that even those involved with one of his projects at the time thought the reports were true and congratulated him on the role while on set, as he revealed when speaking with Yahoo Movies UK back in 2019 when rumors first began.
“So many times, people come to me like, ‘hey man, heard the Wolverine news, that’s pretty cool.’ No, I don’t know anything about it. Like, I appreciate that somebody is clearly going like ‘Wolverine’s actually short in the comic books, you should get like a short guy to do it!’” Radcliffe said. “But I don’t see myself, I don’t see them going from Hugh Jackman to me. But who knows? Prove me wrong, Marvel.”
It’s possible that Radcliffe could change his stance on playing Wolverine, but it’s looking unlikely that he’ll suit up as Wolverine for the MCU — which is a shame given how incredible he looks in the many pieces of fan concept art floating around the internet!
Regardless of who Marvel ends up casting in the role, we have to confess Daniel Radcliffe would make a great Wolverine and he definitely has the acting chops to pull off the depth of the character’s emotional range.
Would you like to see Wolverine join the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Should Daniel Radcliffe play him? Let us know in the comments below!
The duo will tout their Apple TV+ docuseries Gutsy, to launch in September with the likes of Gloria Steinem, Kim Kardashian, Amy Schumer and more joining the Clintons for intimate conversations. The series is based on the Clintons’ written work, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience, and produced by their production company HiddenLight. The Clintons will appear as part of TIFF’s Visionaries industry program, which is supported by The Hollywood Reporter as its official media partner.
“We are thrilled to welcome Hillary and Chelsea Clinton to TIFF 2022. As two ‘gutsy’ women themselves, their breadth of experience and insight into social issues and gender politics is inspiring. We are honored to host this special conversation as part of TIFF’s Industry Conference and spotlight their upcoming Apple Original documentary series Gutsy.” Cameron Bailey, TIFF CEO, said in a statement on Friday.
Produced for Apple by HiddenLight Productions in association with Left/Right LLC, Gutsy is executive produced by Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, alongside Johnny Webb, Siobhan Sinnerton, Roma Khanna, Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver and Anna Chai, who also serves as showrunner.
The producers include Kevin Vargas and Claire Featherstone, and the consulting producers are Huma Abedin and Bari Lurie.
21 Jump Street cemented Johnny Depp’s status as a teen icon and national star, so why did he try to get fired from the production after season 2?
Johnny Depp tried to get fired from 21 Jump Street numerous times before he eventually left the production in the summer of 1990, but why did Johnny Depp leave 21 Jump Street? First aired on April 12, 1987, the series quickly hones in on a squad of young-looking undercover police officers who are seen investigating crimes in high schools, colleges, and other teenage venues – with their espionage aided by their youthful appearances. 21 Jump Street starred characters played by Johnny Depp, Holly Robinson, Peter DeLuise, and Dustin Nguyen, with the series subsequently accredited with famously launching Depp’s burgeoning career.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
While Johnny Depp had seen success with several supporting roles, such as love interest Glen in A Nightmare On Elm Street, it was his casting as Officer Tom Hanson that garnered him national recognition in the late 1980s. 21 Jump Street quickly cemented Depp as a bona fide idol among American teens, with the actor commanding no less than $45,000 per episode at the height of his popularity on the series. Depp’s status as an instantly recognizable teen heartthrob marked quite the reversal of fortunes for the young star, who had previously worked minimum-wage grocery store jobs to supplement a failed music career.
Yet, despite giving him his first big break, three-time Oscar nominee Johnny Depp repeatedly tried to get fired from later seasons of 21 Jump Street before the actor eventually left the series in 1990. So how (and why) did Johnny Depp leave 21 Jump Street? As originally reported by The Telegraph in 2006, Depp trashed his trailer in an effort to break free from the “one-dimensional” character he continually played, with his status as a teen idol serving as a source of great irritation to the actor at the time. Depp was eventually allowed to leave the production after 21 Jump Street season 4, following a meeting with director Tim Burton, who granted him the opportunity to branch off into the more complex character roles he had been craving.
Why Johnny Depp Left 21 Jump Street
Although Johnny Depp remains grateful for the jumpstart 21 Jump Street gave his early movie and TV career, he also remembers being “in a prison, creatively” in later seasons of the show. In the same Telegraph interview, Depp elaborates on his feelings, stating that “it started to get a little show-boaty, you know what I mean? It just started to become false. It started to become this action-packed can of soup, you know? You just market it, and send it out.” This feeling of stagnation, coupled with the series pigeonholing Depp as a teen heartthrob-style character quickly led to the actor’s disillusionment with the 21 Jump Street project.
As a result, Depp reportedly did “everything he could” to get fired from the 21 Jump Street production. Eventually, Edward Scissorhands star Johnny Depp‘s hopelessness resulted in the deliberate destruction of his trailer in the hopes of being jettisoned from the series, although even this act of petulance could not convince 20th Century Fox to let go of their most marketable asset mid-season. Eventually, however, Depp was allowed to leave after filming wrapped on 21 Jump Street‘s fourth season, with Depp seeking new pastures after his aforementioned encounter with Burton. Depp would go on to act in the more multi-dimensional, challenging roles he had always craved under the veteran director, with 21 Jump Street surviving for just one more season after his premature departure from the project. Depp’s name still appeared in the credits for two 21 Jump Street season 5 episodes despite his absence from them.
How Did Depp Leaving Affect 21 Jump Street?
The exit of Johnny Depp from 21 Jump Street understandably spelled doom for the series. Season 5 went straight to off-network syndication since it was struggling to meet ratings after both Depp and Harry Truman Ioki actor Dustin Nguyen left. Once it had fallen out of its primetime slot, 21 Jump Street quickly got snuffed out, with season 5 being the last one. However, this wasn’t totally the end of the franchise, as the films starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street, breathed new life into the concept. Any answer to the question “why did Johnny Depp leave 21 Jump Street?“ involves his desire to take on different work and challenge himself, even though it was essentially a death knell for the series. For Tatum and Hill, however, the movie franchise proved to be a snug fit, using their chemistry to hilarious effect.
The Most Hated Man On The Internet: Where Is Hunter Moore Now?
About The Author
Charles Cameron (399 Articles Published)
A Core Features Editor for Screen Rant specializing in SEO-driven content, Charles Cameron has been managing copy, data reporting, and diverse teams in various forms since 2014. A B.A. graduate of UEL, Charles spent several years in corporate analytics roles before committing to pursuing editing full time. A British native, Charles also is an avid football fan, podcast co-creator, and Brand Strategy & Content Manager for Text Inspector who loves delivering new content en-masse across various forms of media. To date, he’s covered a wide range of TV and Film stories for Screen Rant, including delineating exactly why Gladiator 2 should never see the light of day, detailing numerous left-field fan theories, and reporting Netflix’s ever-changing top 10 movies and TV shows each week. He’s also adamant Revenge of the Sith is the best Star Wars movie out there – which he consistently gets flak for.
In HBO’s two-part documentary George Carlin’s American Dream, directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio chart the distinctive career of the bombastic iconoclast whose material frequently challenged the establishment and inspired generations of comedians who came up after him. From his early days as a straitlaced funnyman to his later years as a cantankerous observer of modern culture, Carlin’s comedy career is like no other. The directors spoke to THR about getting his family’s seal of approval, the treasure trove of archives at their disposal and why Carlin remains such a powerful voice 14 years after his death.
When did you first encounter George Carlin, and what did you think of his material?
JUDD APATOW I started listening to him when I was 9 or 10 years old. It was mind-blowing as a little kid, because so much of it was about questioning authority. And as Carlin said, that’s the one thing that parents don’t teach their kids, to question authority — because they are authority.
MICHAEL BONFIGLIO As a teenager, it was the greatest: He was saying all these things that you’re already feeling and questioning. To have a grown-up saying those things and articulating them in a way that my brain could take in was very exciting.
How did this film project begin?
APATOW I got a call from HBO asking if I was interested in doing something about Carlin. I was nervous because I didn’t know him personally. [His daughter] Kelly also told us that we needed to do something really bold and innovative, that her dad wouldn’t like some boring boilerplate approach. That also terrified me. Slowly, we realized it was a very personal story about their family and the challenges that they faced. He was dealing with his career, addiction, the ups and downs of his ride as a comic during many eras. We always knew we could talk about his politics and how they apply to the present day — that always seemed essential.
BONFIGLIO It was very clear from the onset that there’s a great documentary to be made about George Carlin. He had this incredible career, a personal life that nobody really knew much about and this massive trove of archival material from over half a century.
Was his family ready to participate and offer his archive as a resource?
APATOW It was only possible because Kelly wanted it to be completely honest. She never told us to protect him. And there were rough aspects to his life. He had a very serious cocaine addiction. He didn’t behave the way you would ever want a parent to behave for long periods of time. He encouraged his wife not to work, because he wanted her to take care of Kelly. That was all part of his journey as a man to mature and to evolve into a better person. These types of documentaries aren’t worth doing unless you can go all the way. And they did keep everything — there were recordings of him on cocaine, ranting in the middle of a six-day binge. There were letters apologizing for having substance abuse problems. That made that personal journey come alive, because he was someone who didn’t talk about any of that in his act.
In the film, Chris Rock argues that comedians are our era’s philosophers. On the other hand, Jerry Seinfeld says that a joke has never changed his mind. How do the two of you see Carlin in that respect? Was he a public intellectual with the power to influence an audience, or simply an entertainer?
APATOW In one of his notes, he wrote, “I just want the audience to know that I’ve been thinking.” He was definitely trying to stir the pot and make people consider issues from many angles. I don’t think he thought he was changing everybody’s mind. That wasn’t really his intention. Unfortunately, comedy doesn’t change people’s minds — I wish it would. I do think when you’re young, like I was [when] I was introduced to a mind like his, that it helps shape values and a way of examining the world.
BONFIGLIO There’s a place for comedy to push people to think differently, or to think bigger and broader. But comedy is not just philosophy — it has to be funny. And sometimes you have to sacrifice logic to get to the funny premise. Putting that pressure on comedians to be anything but funny is maybe asking too much.
Carlin with his daughter, Kelly (left), and first wife, Brenda.
Courtesy Of George Carlin’s Estate/HBO
You feature talking heads of different generations to speak to Carlin’s impact and influence. Did you find that someone like Sam Jay had a different perspective than a veteran like Seinfeld?
BONFIGLIO That diversity of people was always really important to us. Carlin influenced so many generations of people and a diversity of comedic styles. It was especially interesting to find somebody like Hasan Minhaj or Sam Jay, who discovered a different version of him than Seinfeld and Steven Wright [did]. It was a fascinating phenomenon that I don’t think is really true of very many other comics. He had so many different phases, and each of those phases influenced different people in different ways.
The film resists the easy temptation to imagine what Carlin would have to say about our current time. How did you avoid that?
BONFIGLIO It’s pointless to speculate. The world has changed a lot since George died, but it’s also very much the same. He already put out there what he thought about so many [topics].
APATOW He talked a lot about financial interests controlling the media and government. He was very worried about the influence of religion in politics. He was definitely pro-choice, for gun control. A lot of what’s happening in the country right now feels like the logical result of the large issues that he was concerned about. I don’t think something like January 6 would have surprised him, because he did feel like the country was getting out of control.
Interview edited for length and clarity.
This story first appeared in the July 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Billboard’s First Stream serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Beyoncé enters her Renaissance movement, Blackpink tees up their return, and Maggie Rogers discovers herself on her second album. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Beyoncé, Renaissance
Although six years have passed since Beyoncé’s last solo album, 2016’s Lemonade, the raw emotion of that album — which focused on personal betrayal and the pain, confusion and (ultimately) acceptance that come as a result — has not dulled one bit. Renaissance, its mesmerizing follow-up, is also an emotional project, but that feeling is euphoria: dance-floor joy drives the album as Beyoncé tumbles into a fantasia of house, disco, techno and garage, but the foundation here is the bliss one feels when their self-worth is sky-high. From the gleeful rhyming of “Heated” to the jaw-dropping vocals of “Plastic Off the Sofa” to the chest-thumping power of “Cozy,” Renaissance is a proclamation of inner beauty from an artistic queen, yet also functions as a mirror — when you listen to it, you’ll feel like your soul is unbreakable.
Blackpink will officially be back in your area soon, as the K-pop girl group has announced that they will return with new music in August; in the meantime, the quartet has unveiled as official video for “Ready For Love,” a charming, EDM-adjacent track that premiered as a collaboration with the video game PUGB Mobile. Most excitingly, Lisa’s rapping on the track sounds as slick and confident as ever — let’s hope, along with the pop harmonies and dance beats, Blackpink’s next project makes plenty of room for that skill to shine.
Maggie Rogers, Surrender
When Maggie Rogers made her 2019 debut Heard It In a Past Life, the singer-songwriter was still finding her voice after going viral with her song “Alaska,” which wowed Pharrell Williams during a master class at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute. With Surrender, Rogers has not only found it, but expanded its contours: the sophomore LP takes big swings — the lovely call-for-peace closer “Different Kind of World,” the intimate BFF sing-along “I’ve Got a Friend,” and especially the top-notch fuzzed-out rocker “Shatter” — with an understanding of Rogers’ sharpening vocal skills and writing nuances, so that even the most ambitious moments feel lived-in and authentic.
Rosalía, “Despechá”
Although the world is absorbing MOTOMAMÍ a few months after its release, the moment that Rosalía began performing the breathless dance cut “Despechá” on her recent tour, it was widely agreed upon that fans could not wait a few more years for this unreleased track to see the light of day on its official follow-up. “Despechá” moves quickly yet gracefully, as Rosalía twirls around piano stabs until the beat catches up to her voice — the song would have been a highlight of MOTOMAMÍ, and it stands tall on its own as a gift to fans.
$uicideboy$, Sing Me a Lullaby, My Sweet Temptation
The cult following that Ruby da Cherry and $crim, a pair of cousins from New Orleans, have developed as the hardcore hip-hop duo $uicideboy$ over the past eight years has been nothing short of remarkable — their crowds are sprawling, their songs rack up millions of streams, and both of their albums have hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart. Third LP Sing Me a Lullaby, My Sweet Temptation doesn’t try to reinvent the duo’s respective wheel, but glides forward with reflections on themselves and their complex new reality in the spotlight, each bar compact and impactful while fighting against the bleakness.
Hayley Kiyoko, Panorama
Hayley Kiyoko shouldn’t be pigeonholed as a pop star for LGBTQ audiences: while her identity and advocacy as a queer artist has been important for widening representation in pop, Kiyoko also happens to be a gifted vocalist with a knack for hooks that can beguile any demographic. From the delicious takedown of opener “Sugar at the Bottom” to the intimate confessions of the lush closer “Panorama,” Kiyoko’s sophomore LP is the sound of an artist ready to transcend any preconceived notions and soar higher in the mainstream.
Coming to theatres and VOD tomorrow, Friday, July 29: MY TREE
Director: Jason Sherman
World Premiere: Hot Docs 2021
About: Forty years after receiving a tree for his bar mitzvah, planted in Israel in his name, the filmmaker searches it out, discovering many uncomfortable truths stemming from his gift.
Even though we know the world isn’t suddenly spinning faster, it’s hard to shake the feeling that time is speeding up on us. In early summer 2018, 12 boys and their assistant soccer coach were trapped for more than two weeks in the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand, their situation becoming increasingly dire as heavy rainfall threatened to engulf the cave’s chambers completely. Volunteers from around the globe rushed to help, but as the world watched and waited, it seemed increasingly doubtful that the boys and their coach could be brought out alive. Astonishingly, rescuers pulled it off.
Yet as joyful as that news event was, the world moved on quickly, as it always does. That’s the wonder of Ron Howard’s vivid true-life drama Thirteen Lives: it suspends time for just a few hours, allowing us to put our current preoccupations on pause and marvel at just how extraordinary this rescue operation was. If we didn’t know the ending, this picture might be unbearably tense. Luckily, we have the benefit of being able to read the future even as we watch Thirteen Lives, and that leaves us free to enjoy Howard’s crackerjack storytelling skills, not to mention the picture’s bracing, casually heroic lead performances.
Director Ron Howard on the set of ‘Thirteen Lives’
Vince Valitutti—Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures
Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen play John Volanthen and Rick Stanton, volunteer cave divers—who knew there was such a thing?—from England who are adept at complex rescues. When they arrive on the scene, they’re greeted with distrust by the Royal Thai Navy SEALs entrusted with the operation, particularly Commander Kiet (Thira Chutikul). It doesn’t help that they show up in middle-aged-dad gear, having argued earlier about who took one custard-cream biscuit too many from the packet. As it turns out, they’re the ones who locate the boys, after barely skimming, in their bulky diving gear, through a series of terrifyingly slender underwater tunnels. “The old men found the boys!” one of the SEALs exclaims in subtitled Thai upon their return. The “old” part is only half a joke.
But finding the trapped boys was barely a start. Getting them out seemed impossible, involving some three hours of treacherous underwater swimming. The solution finally settled upon—requiring the specialized expertise of yet another rescue diver, Joel Edgerton’s Harry Harris—was a gamble, with potentially chilling consequences. In case you don’t remember, or never knew, the specifics, they won’t be spoiled here.
This story has been told on film before, notably in the 2021 documentary The Rescue, which incorporated footage shot by the Thai Navy SEALs during the mission. Similarly, Thirteen Lives stresses that Volanthen, Stanton, and Harris, though they’re played by movie stars, are just three links in the complex chain that made this near-miracle possible. One Thai diver died during the rescue, and another later succumbed to a blood infection he’d contracted during the operation.
Howard is particularly sensitive in his depiction of the boys’ families, who waited outside the cave for days on end, steeling themselves for a tragic outcome. And the faces of the boys themselves, alight with joy at having been found by the divers after 10 harrowing days, tell you all you need to know about why the rescuers fought so hard to get them out. If you can’t move heaven and earth, then you move a little bit of water, with all your strength, until the open sky comes into view.
