No Time to Die Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga Cast: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, and Ralph Fiennes
Driving down the spectacular winding roads of Matera in Italy, Madeline (Léa Seydoux) tells an aging James Bond (Daniel Craig) at the wheel, “Can we go any faster?” He replies, “We don’t have to go any faster, we have all the time in the world.” The statement seems ominous, as it should, but also an ironical reference to Craig’s last time as Bond, and the long wait to watch him on the big screen on the other side of the pandemic.
There are many ways to describe No Time to Die. It’s the 25th film in the 60-year-long James Bond franchise, and Daniel Craig’s swansong, which he returned to after much convincing. It is also a long-awaited one, being delayed by two years due to the pandemic, and also survived a quitting director (Danny Boyle), due to ‘creative differences’. From the very first frame it is evident the film has overcome several obstacles to emerge as one of the most dazzlingly beautiful and heartbreakingly romantic Bond films ever.
The storyline has too many uncanny similarities with real life. The agent gets recalled from his downtime in Jamaica to assist Felix Leiter in a mission to save a scientist kidnapped by Rami Malek’s Lyutsifer Safin. Craig’s retired Bond is a reflection of the actor’s own resigned self from the film franchise, and reluctant re-entry to deliver a role no one else can be imagined in. Craig added the much-needed emotions to Bond long ago, we just see the culmination of it all in this one. The look of determination balanced with inner turmoil, ruthlessness against the vulnerability – this is a more well-rounded Bond than ever. Unfortunately, it is the last from Craig.
Bond films have some tropes of their own, and this one takes those forward too. The franchise has evolved, though the progression seems a little half-hearted. We have Ana De Armas in a brilliant sequence fighting goons in a ball gown and heels, as a nod to the Bond girl stereotype. The film deviates from the norm in handing over the 007 badge to a woman of colour, but there’s very little of the sassy Lashana Lynch that we get to see. In the climax, she hands over centrestage to Craig and moves to the sidelines, leaving you wondering if the franchise has really progressed at all.
More menace was expected from the new Bond villain, Rami Malek as Safin. He begins with a bang, but as soon as Bond enters the scene, you know the film belongs to him. Malek’s restrained performance somewhat pales in front of the brilliance of Craig and you have the camera and direction to blame for that. Craig meets his match in Lea Léa Seydoux though, and together they deliver some of the most emotional scenes in the film where we see Bond at his most vulnerable.
The makers knew they had to make Craig’s last Bond appearance the best, and that’s evident from every scene that’s skewed towards glorifying him. A viewer with not much background to Bond’s character will not understand why the spy with a ‘license to kill’ is not subject to unanimous love. Add to that the humanizing yet glorifying aspects of No Time to Die that makes Bond’s character almost god-like. And you forgive the makers for it because you are too busy admiring the view.
It is a beautifully made film. The production design, stunts, action sequences, look and feel of each character is so carefully crafted that even when the story feels overlong, you want to continue watching. Every Bond film has stunning backdrops, remarkable frames and heart-stopping moments, and No Time to Die takes it to another breathtaking level. It is a visual and emotional treat, one that is satisfying but will leave you with a sense of incompletion in the end.
Cheyenne Jackson is adding producer to his resume. The actor and singer has quietly launched a production company, Shiny Boy Entertainment, with his husband Jason Landau, the couple exclusively tells me.
Their first project is “Brutal,” director Sam McConnell and writer Nicolas Citton‘s comedy short about a news anchor (Jackson) who acquires a leaked sex tape of a longtime U.S. senator. The cast also includes Rachael Harris (“Lucifer”), Angelica Ross (“Pose”), Johnny Sibilly (“Queer as Folk”), Drew Droege (“Search Party”) and Matthew Morrison (“Glee”). “Brutal” will premiere June 18 at Frameline in San Francisco followed by additional festival screenings throughout the summer.
Jackson came on as a producer of “Brutal,” a co-production with Julie Christeas of Tandem Pictures, after McConnell offered him the lead role. “We’re using ‘Brutal’ as a proof of concept. We think it would be a great series kind of in the vein of ‘Veep,’” Jackson says.
Jackson and Landau, a merchandising and branding executive, married in 2014. They are parents to five-year-old twins Willow and Ethan.
Shiny Boy started to come together about a year ago.
“We’ll be watching a show or movie together and we’ll both have the same note about a scene,” says Jackson.
Landau says, “Like just last night, we were watching something and we stopped a scene and were like, ‘OK, if we were writing the scene, this is what’s missing. Why people didn’t get it is because this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen.’”
Cheyenne Jackson and Jason Landau at Sean Penn’s CORE Gala at the Hollywood Palladium on June 10, 2022 in Los Angeles.
Getty Images for CORE
They eventually realized they may be on to something bigger than just couch critiques. “Jason kept saying, ‘We need to do something together. We need to work together,’” Jackson says. “I was a little reticent because…”
Jason interjects, “Because we want to stay married.”
But their working relationship is moving along quite nicely. “We have about three or four projects in various stages of development, some that we’re writing from scratch and some that we acquired from people,” Jackson says.
“We see that there’s a hole missing in how people tell stories and in what stories are being told,” Landau says. “The bottom line is we’re both truth seekers.”
Jackson says his “Call Me Kat” co-star and producer Mayim Bialik has been an inspiration. “Especially watching her write, direct and produce her first feature while being an executive producer and a co-star, I started to think, I can do that,” he says.
Jackson’s credits also include “Julie and the Phantoms,” “Watchmen,” “American Horror Story,” “30 Rock” and “Glee.” He earned Drama Desk Award nominations for his work in Broadway’s “Xanadu” and “Finian’s Rainbow.”
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, known collectively as Adil & Bilall, are a directing duo with big personalities, and their charisma comes across in their work, especially the premiere of Disney+’s Ms. Marvel.
Whether it’s their inspired camera movements and angles or their animated flourishes a la Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the Belgian directors have brought a unique style and energy to the MCU’s origin story about Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani). El Arbi and Fallah — who are most known for helming 2020’s biggest domestic film, Bad Boys for Life — were admittedly worried that their unconventional approach would be too much of a departure from Marvel Studios’ visual vocabulary.
“Surprisingly, [Marvel Studios] said, ‘Yeah, go for it! Don’t go overboard [with the animated flourishes]. Don’t do it every five seconds, but as long as it’s true to the story and the character, go for it.’ So it was a real pleasure to be allowed to do something like that,” El Arbi tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Much like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad filmmaker James Gunn, the duo followed up their work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by directing a DC project, taking on DC Films and HBO Max’s Batgirl, starring Leslie Grace in the titular role. And similar to Gunn, El Arbi and Fallah felt nothing but support from Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige.
“We wrote [Marvel Studios] an email that said we were going to do Batgirl, and then Kevin Feige, Victoria [Alonso] and Lou [D’Esposito] all said, ‘Congratulations!’ They were super happy for us. People say there’s a rivalry, but it’s totally not like that. They make each other stronger, and we felt the vibe between DC and Marvel,” Fallah shares.
El Arbi adds: “They’re big fans of each other. Kevin was constantly asking questions, ‘How’s it going? What’s going to happen?’ He was a real fanboy, so that was pretty dope.”
Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman will also be appearing in Batgirl, and the pair of directors are playing coy if the star of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) can finally turn his head in the Batsuit, which was quite a limitation three decades earlier.
“Well, I can only say that it’s OG Batman. So you can draw your own conclusions to what OG Batman means,” El Arbi says as Fallah imitates Keaton’s full-body head movements in the Batsuit.
In a recent conversation with THR, El Arbi and Fallah also discussed the extensive setup behind the upside-down couch shot in Ms. Marvel’s premiere episode, “Generation Why.”
I’m sure you guys are hearing the word “stylish” a lot today because Ms. Marvel has a visual spark that’s unique to the MCU. What films were the two of you referencing at the time?
Adil El Arbi: We loved the vibrancy and the colors of the comic book, and we tried to convey a way to translate the dream world, the fantasy world of Kamala Khan. So we were very much inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and we wondered what it would look like to have a live-action version of Into the Spider-Verse. Obviously, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was also a big inspiration and reference, but we were a bit nervous that Kevin Feige and Marvel would not allow it because it’s different from all the other shows and movies. You don’t really have that in the other shows and movies, so we did a whole presentation with examples that explained how it was going to look and why it was important to Kamala Khan’s journey and seeing the world through her eyes. And surprisingly, they said, “Yeah, go for it! Don’t go overboard. Don’t do it every five seconds, but as long as it’s true to the story and the character, go for it.” So it was a real pleasure to be allowed to do something like that.
Nimra Bucha as Najma, Mohan Kapur as Yusuf, director Bilall Fallah, Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, director Adil El Arbi, and Saagar Shaikh as Aamir in Marvel Studios’ Ms. Marvel.
Daniel McFadden/Marvel Studios
Did the upside-down couch shot stem from Unbreakable? Was that an inspiration at all?
El Arbi: Well, it could be subconsciously. Together with our DP, Robrecht Heyvaert, who’s also from Belgium, we always try to make funky shots and cool stuff. So every time we see a cool, crazy shot in a movie or a TV show, we’re like, “How did they do that?” It took 15 days to build the [couch] rig and almost 20 takes just to make that work, but it was worth it. It became something memorable, so the real pleasure is in the challenge of making something like that.
At one point, Kamala says, “Don’t mention Belgium or any guy named Rob.” Are you guys responsible for both Belgium references in the first episode?
Bilall Fallah: (Laughs.) Yeah, we’re definitely responsible, and it’s a reference to our DP, Robrecht Heyvaert. We always call him Rob, so he became “Rob from Belgium.”
El Arbi & Fallah: (Laugh.)
Fallah: All the people in Belgium went crazy when they heard that.
El Arbi: Yeah, it was like, “Belgium!”
The two of you have a lot in common with James Gunn in that you’ve both worked for Marvel and DC, and James told me that Marvel was so supportive that they even visited him on the set of The Suicide Squad. While set visits are a lot harder to do now, was Marvel really happy for you guys when you landed Batgirl?
Fallah: Yeah, we wrote [Marvel Studios] an email that said we were going to do Batgirl, and then Kevin Feige, Victoria [Alonso] and Lou [D’Esposito] all said, “Congratulations!” They were super happy for us. People say there’s a rivalry, but it’s totally not like that. They make each other stronger, and we felt the vibe between DC and Marvel.
El Arbi: Yeah, they’re big fans of each other. Kevin was constantly asking questions, “How’s it going? What’s going to happen?” He was a real fanboy, so that was pretty dope.
I’m curious about your partnership on set. Do you divide up the work based on your individual strengths? Does one of you focus more on composition while the other handles performance?
El Arbi: It depends. Sometimes, I’ll be more with the actors, and Bilall will be more with the cinematographer. But that can change given the circumstances. Sometimes, I’m the bad cop with the actors, and he’s the good cop with the actors. (Laughs.) On our Belgian movie Rebel that premiered at Cannes a couple days ago, it was such a complex movie that we sometimes had two units. He would direct some scenes, and I would direct entirely different scenes because of the lack of budget. So it’s a very organic way to work.
For the visual flourishes that represent Kamala’s imagination, did the two of you take the lead on those animated moments, or did they originate on the page?
Fallah: The animation was not presented in the script or in the concept art. It was something that we really wanted to do based on Into the Spider-Verse, and we imagined we could do a live-action version of that. It was also important for us to get inside Kamala Khan’s head and capture her dream world and fantasy world. We love animation and the comic-book aesthetic, and combined with Kamala being a fan of Marvel, all of that made us think to use animation to show that. But like Adil said, we were afraid that Marvel wouldn’t accept it because it’s totally different from all the other shows and movies. So we did a whole presentation with YouTube videos, and Kevin Feige said, “Yeah, I like it. Just don’t go overboard. Use it for good reasons like character and story.” So we were surprised.
El Arbi: It was so fun to design all of that, like the opening sequence with stop motion, the murals on the wall, the text messages … All of that was great fun, and the other directors also had a lot of fun with that in their episodes.
Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, and executive producer Sana Amanat behind the scenes of Marvel Studios‘ Ms Marvel.
Daniel McFadden/Marvel Studios
For AvengerCon, did any of the set decoration come from real-life MCU fans?
El Arbi: Well, it was inspired by the real Comic-Cons, and it was the most fun set that we’ve ever been on. The extras, actually, were real fans. There were real cosplay artists.
Fallah: We also did a lot of research on Comic-Cons, so we found a lot of cool costumes we wanted to incorporate.
El Arbi: We were just fanboying on that day. We were taking selfies all the time and playing with all the toys. So the producers had to grab us and make us focus on directing the scene. (Laughs.) It was an amazing homage to the fandom around the world.
Fallah: There are also a lot of Easter eggs. If you go through every frame, you’ll definitely find something.
In regard to Batgirl, I have to ask: Can Michael Keaton finally turn his head in the Batsuit? [Writer’s Note: Keaton had such limited mobility in the Batsuit that he had to turn his entire body in order to change the position of his head.]
El Arbi & Fallah: (Laugh.)
El Arbi: Well, I can only say that it’s OG Batman.
Fallah: The GOAT!
El Arbi: So you can draw your own conclusions to what OG Batman means.
Fallah: (Mimics Keaton’s full-body movements in order to change the direction of Batman’s head.)
El Arbi & Fallah: (Laugh.)
*** Ms. Marvel is now streaming on Disney+. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
However, fans can take solace in the fact that they still have the remainder of Riverdale Season 6 and the entirety of Riverdale Season 7.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa opened up about the decision to end The CW drama.
“We were thinking seven years was going to be our run. And when that was formalized, I don’t think it caught anyone by surprise … I will say, the confirmation came as we were plotting literally the last episode of the season,” the showrunner teased.
“And we were weighing a very big swing for the end of the season and into season seven.”
“And when [the news] came down, it was like, ‘We’re doing this.’ So it was really good timing and I think it emboldened us to run into this wild choice quite happily.”
What might that entail?
We have no idea, but Riverdale has been known for wild twists that shake up the dynamics of the series.
For that reason alone, we’re inclined to believe this huge development will be a shocker.
In true Riverdale fashion, we should expect a cliffhanger, and now that we know about this big development, we’re excited.
“I am a big believer in attempting to give series that have had long runs an appropriate sendoff,” CW Chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz said during an executive call last month when the decision was made to end the show.
“We had a long conversation with [executive producer] Roberto [Aguirre-Sacasa] yesterday, who is thrilled by this news, and we will treat the show in the manner it deserves.”
“We want to make sure it goes out the right way.”
““I think they, too, felt that seven years is the right amount. As a fan myself, I do want to do what is right for the show.”
The series returned with a Rivervale event that put the characters in various dangerous situations.
We get it, the show does that on a weekly basis, but there was more horror than before.
As previously reported, the final season has been banished to 2023, but it is expected to wrap with a full season instead of a handful of episodes.
NBC announced on Monday that Mehcad Brooks is joining “Law & Order” for the procedural’s upcoming Season 22. The actor, who played Jimmy Olsen on The CW’s “Supergirl,” has been cast as a detective.
His casting comes after Anthony Anderson, who reprised his role of Detective Kevin Bernard for the Season 21 revival, announced he would not be returning to the series.
Although no description is available for Brooks’ character, he might be stepping in as the new partner to Jeffrey Donovan’s old school cop, Detective Frank Cosgrove.
Besides “Supergirl,” Brooks is known for his roles on ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” “HBO’s True Blood,” and the USA sports drama “Necessary Roughness.”
His film credits include “A Fall from Grace,” “Nobody’s Fool,” “In the Valley of Elah,” “Just Wright,” and “About Last Night” opposite Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy and Regina Hall.
“Law & Order” Season 22 stars Sam Waterston, Jeffrey Donovan, Camryn Manheim, Hugh Dancy and Odelya Halevi. Dick Wolf is creator and executive producer. Rick Eid, Arthur Forney and Peter Jankowski are executive producers.
Brooks is repped by Verve, Artists First and Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver & Thompson.
“Law & Order” is produced by Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.
In a statement about “Wretched,” the Washington, D.C. artist offered a dedication:
This song is about the people who’ve always stood by me, even when I was wretched. When I was trying to be something other than myself—they saw me even through that and held me down. Folks from past lives, and folks who’ll play a big part in my future—I’m grateful for them and the love they’ve poured into me. This song is for and about them.
“We Need to Talk About Cosby” grapples with the legacy of the once-beloved comedian who’s been accused by over 60 women of rape and sexual assault. Director W. Kamau Bell interviews a wide range of people including Cosby’s accusers, former colleagues, and journalists for the four-part series streaming on Showtime.
Russian police detained 20 women under suspicion of protesting against Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine and forced them to strip naked and squat five times ‘in front of police cameras,’ the group has claimed.
The ‘suspects’ aged 18 to 27 were rounded up at or near a rally in the city of Nizhny Novgorod and subjected to ‘humiliating and degrading’ treatment, says their lawyer.
Women police officers ordered them to strip, but in some cases cell doors were open and male officers passed by.
In all cases, cell cameras fitted with video recorders spied on the alleged abuse.
Men detained at the same time were not subjected to the strip-and-squat orders.
Twenty women detained under suspicion of protesting against Vladimir Putin’s war were forced to strip naked and squat five times ‘in front of police cameras’. Pictured: Russian police officer surround detained woman in Nizhny Novgorod in March during an anti-war rally
‘I am outraged that each of them was searched in a humiliating way at the detention centre, violating our legislation,’ complained lawyer Olimpiada Usanova, who is going to court on behalf of the women to challenge their treatment.
‘The females were searched by undressing and squatting five times in the presence of a detention centre officer.
‘A second humiliating search was conducted several hours later in the cells and the women were forced to lift up their shirts, take off their panties, and bare their breasts in the camera surveillance area.
‘I am concerned that female officers did not close the doors as some women were examined, and male officers were lurking there.’
She believes that male officers also watched footage of the strip searches and squats on cell camera footage.
‘Detained men were just patted on their front and back, that’s all,’ she said. ‘The girls were forced to strip naked and crouch down.
‘And the next day, they were made to undress again, turning out their bras.
‘This is despite the fact that every cell has CCTVs. This is a severe violation.’
Student Ekaterina Devyatkina, 18, is one of several victims who agreed to show their identities ahead of their attempt in court to challenge their treatment
Pictured: Taisiya Kudelkina (left) and Natalya Nevar (right) are among the twenty women to have been detained during the anti-war protests. Both agreed to share their identity
Pictured: Zemfira Suleimanova (left) is among the twenty women to have been detained during the anti-war protests. She agreed to share their identity. Right: Lawyer Olimpiada Usanova, who is representing the group of women who were detained
The scandal in the city found 250 miles east of Moscow was in March but has only now come to light as the women take legal action against their alleged treatment, highlighted in a report by Lydia Kuzmenko in cherta.media.
Student Ekaterina Devyatkina, 18, is one of several victims who agreed to show their identities ahead of their attempt in court to challenge their treatment.
She claimed to be listening to a musician near the protest rally when she was pushed into a cell-on-wheels and detained.
‘They searched us very slowly, arrogantly and with mockery,’ she said. ‘A police officer in some nook ordered me to undress. It seemed strange to me right away.
‘I stripped down to my underwear first but the officer demanded to undress further.
‘I replied that I was on my period. The policewoman replied: “Well, I’m a woman, I understand everything. Undress and squat.”
‘I had to do five squats. I sat down, then got dressed. I was given bed linen and was sent to the cell to the other girls. The conditions in the cell itself were terrible. There was no toilet paper, no bin. The smell was terrible, everyone was constantly sick.’
Other women who identified themselves – all fined for protesting against Putin’s war – were Zemfira Suleimanova, 25, Taisiya Kudelkina, 24, Natalya Nevar, 30, and Irina M, 26. One woman Yevgeniya, 22, told how at Sormovsky police station she was addressed as ‘bunny’ and ‘kitten’ before being ordered to strip naked.
Pictured: A woman is detained by police officers during an anti-war rally in Nizhny Novgorod
Pictured: The Nizhny Novgorod detention facility where the girls were placed
Women police officers ordered the detained women to strip inside the cells, but in some cases cell doors were open and male officers passed by. One of the women said the cells were fitted with CCTV cameras and believes they were watched by male officers
A woman officer ‘led me to the wall and ordered me to undress completely. And squat four times.’
Next morning ‘we were ordered to stand against a wall in our underwear, and expose our breasts. This was with a camera pointing at us and a video recording.
‘The door to the cell was not closed, and there were male employees in the corridor.
Another woman, Anastasiya, 24, said a video camera was visible when she was ordered to undress and expose her breasts.
Draconian laws in Russia all but forbid protest against Putin’s bloody war in Ukraine.
The women were forced to pay fines of up £215 for allegedly attending a banned anti-war rally.
‘It seems to me that this was not done by the personal will of the officers but under the supervision of the management,’ said the lawyer.
‘I assume that this was an order specifically concerning the young women.
‘Most were from 18 to 25 years old. After being in the special detention centre, many had panic attacks and tantrums.
‘Some needed counselling by a psychologist after what they went through. This is violence – violent violence. This cannot be left unpunished.
‘And if we don’t talk and write about it, in the future we may face even harsher methods, including rape.
‘We have filed a collective lawsuit against the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Nizhny Novgorod, demanding compensation for moral damage for violation of rights and humiliation.
‘We are also appealing against improper detention in police departments.’
They are demanding an average £1,700 in compensation for each woman.
Tamar Braxton shared a video on her social media account in which she is twerking like there’s no tomorrow. Check out the latest clip she shared below.
‘I wanna put music to it but that damn @jameswrightchanel needs the work of the lord… we act UP before we go onstage… we are all so grateful to God be the glory #littlebootiesmatter,’ she said.
Someone said: ‘Lol that’s it right there took me out!! Get it sis!!’ and one other follower said this: ‘Jamessssss im screaming you and Taytay together omg.’
Real booties matter! That part! Up down move that thang around Tay! Love you sis! @tamarbraxton
A fan said: ‘How is your son going to feel when he sees his mother twerking?’ and one other follower posted this: ‘He went down in flames the first time he saw me.’
One fan said: ‘That thang thanging tho you did got better with twerkinnn howww,’ and one other follower said: ‘“He Wasn’t Man Enough” played in my head while watching this.’
Someone else said: ‘I’m Done! Ayooooo! U go girl cuz ain’t nuffin to it but to do ittttt!’
Tamar Braxton made her fans and followers happy with an announcement that she dropped via her social media account. Check it out below.
‘@tamarbraxton is now available on Europe’s #1 personalized shoutout platform, @memmo_official ! Here to share the perfect message for you or your loved ones for any special occasion. Link in bio to book,’ Tamar captioned the post that has fans steering for her via the comments section.
Someone else said: ‘I went around 360 degree and not find something more beautiful than you.’
Another follower posted this: ‘Have charcoal take you some pictures we need to see the full swimsuit ma’am,’ and a fan said: ‘You look stunning Tay. Check out @karma7.co for more bikinis that would look amazing on you.’
Yahoo, the nearly three-decade-old internet brand, is adding six new members to the privately held company’s board, including actor and entrepreneur Jessica Alba.
Verizon Media sold Yahoo last year for $5 billion to private-equity firm Apollo Group, while the telco retained a 10% ownership stake. The company hired Jim Lanzone, former Tinder and CBS exec, as CEO.
Joining Lanzone and representatives from Apollo and Verizon on the Yahoo board are: Alba, founder and chief creative officer of mission-driven consumer products company The Honest Co.; Aryeh Bourkoff, founder and CEO of investment bank LionTree; Cynthia Marshall, CEO of the Mark Cuban-owned Dallas Mavericks; Fouad ElNaggar, co-founder and CEO of Array; K5 Global founder and CEO Michael Kives; and Katie Stanton, founder and general partner of Moxxie Ventures, who previously was a senior exec at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color.
“As we enter into a new era of Yahoo, establishing a powerful board of directors with strategic knowledge of diverse industries will drive greater growth, innovation, and scale,” Lanzone said in an announcement. “The intersection of media, tech, product, and content is more relevant than ever and this board represents the best minds in those categories.”
In a statement, Yahoo chairman Reed Rayman commented, “We’re thrilled to welcome such high-caliber executives to the Yahoo board of directors, which we view as testament to Yahoo’s leadership in delivering seamless consumer products and digital media solutions at unparalleled scale, and the opportunities that lie ahead.”
Yahoo says it reaches an audience of nearly 900 million people worldwide. In addition to Yahoo Finance, its brands include AOL, Engadget, TechCrunch, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Fantasy and Yahoo Mail.
The 75th annual show couldn’t quite bounce back to its pre-pandemic viewership
The 75th annual Tony Awards drew an audience of 3.86 million viewers on Sunday, which is up 39% from last year’s hybrid telecast.
The awards show was also streamed on Paramount+ and other CBS platforms, where viewership was up 30%, according to CBS. It marked the most-viewed livestream to date on digital platforms.
As for ratings, data on how the show fared among the key 18-49 demographic are not yet available.
This was the first traditional Tony Awards since 2019, after the show was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. Last year, the Tonys opted for a hybrid special titled “The Tony Awards Present: Broadway’s Back,” where some awards were also handed out.
That telecast settled for 2.6 million total viewers and a 0.4 demo rating, which was less than half of the 5.4 million viewers the show got in 2019 — an all-time low at the time. The 2019 show got a 0.8 demo rating.
The year before, the 2018 telecast had 6.3 million viewers and a 1.0 rating among adults 18-49. (The 2017 show fetched 6 million viewers and a 0.9 rating in the key demo.)
Ariana DeBose kicked off the CBS telecast on Sunday night — quite literally — with a snazzy opening number which blended the lyrics and scores of two random musicals at a time all while wearing a white-hot Michael Jackson-inspired sequined suit.
It was otherwise a fairly by-the-numbers ceremony with some notable firsts (first-ever non-binary winner Toby Marlow, who co-won the Best Score Tony for “Six”, and Jennifer Hudson became an EGOT winner at long last, as producer of Best Musical winner “A Strange Loop”).
With a win for “A Strange Loop” in the best new musical category, Jennifer Hudson, one of the show’s co-producers, joins a select group of people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
The singer and actress was added as a producer of the Michael R. Jackson show as it transitioned to Broadway. Other celebrities listed as producers include RuPaul Charles, Don Cheadle, Mindy Kaling, Billy Porter and Alan Cumming.
“This brilliant, funny masterpiece exposes the heart and soul of a young artist struggling with his desires, identity and instincts he both loves and hates,” Hudson said on the awards show Sunday while introducing a performance of the musical.
Hudson won an Oscar in 2007 for her role in “Dreamgirls” and two Grammys — one for best R&B album and another for the cast album of “The Color Purple.” An interactive animated short that she was an executive producer on, “Baba Yaga,” won a Daytime Emmy Award.
Hudson, who shot to fame in 2004 as a contestant on “American Idol” and starred in the 2015 Broadway revival of “The Color Purple,” is the latest addition to a short list of EGOTs that includes Rita Moreno, John Legend, Audrey Hepburn and Whoopi Goldberg.
With nine glorious years behind them, BTS members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook decided to honour their group by getting matching tattoos. BTS leader Kim Namjoon had previously hinted that the talks to get matching tattoos are still underway, the rapper debuted his tattoo on Instagram recently. J-Hope too revealed that he has got the ink. Fans also spotted a little ‘7’ tattoo on Jimin’s finger. While fans were convinced everyone’s got their tattoos, V has now revealed he is yet to get the ink.
Appearing on a special VLive on Monday, on BTS’ 9th debut anniversary, Kim Taehyung brought up the matching tattoos that have been making the headlines. He confirmed that he is yet to get the tattoo and is still deliberating where he should get it.
As translated by @thetaeprint on Twitter, TaeTae said, “I am still deciding where should I put my tattoo. I have to decide immediately. Once I have decided, I will go with Jungkook to get tattooed.” He then asked fans to recommend a part of the body on which he could get the tattoo.
[TRANS] ?: I am still deciding where should I put my tattoo. I have to decide immediately. Once I have decided, I will go with Jungkook to get tattooed.pic.twitter.com/20sc80MUYG
“Since it may affect (TV) promotions, Taehyung said he wants to have his tattoo somewhere that can’t be seen and asked for suggestions on where to put it. Here are his options: 1. Below the left buttcheek 2. Top of head 3. Below belly button. 4. Inner part of thigh 5. right toe,” he asked.
Besides talking about tattoos, Taehyung also shared his thoughts on Jungkook’s new song. For the unversed, Jungkook released a new track titled My You for the fans on the debut anniversary. The song has received much love from fans. During the live, Taehyung revealed that he had heard the song a month before the track was scheduled to release and praised it.
TRANS| 220613 | Taehyung on Vlive!
?: have i listened to jungkook-ie’s new song? *reads comment*
?: ofcourse, i listened to jungkook-ie’s song a month ago. it sounds good, let’s play it! ?: *sings along* to “my you” ?: he made this song so well! pic.twitter.com/HjYYPU54r4
Nikesh Patel and Rose Matafeo in StarstruckPhoto: Mark Johnson/HBO Max
Finally, some good news from the HBO Max world. On Monday, the streamer announced it has renewed charming rom-com Starstruck for a third season.
For those who haven’t hopped on the Starstruck bandwagon (hop on board, there’s plenty of room!), the series follows Jessie (creator Rose Matafeo), a directionless young woman who unwittingly has a one night stand with a major movie star, Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel). The first season chronicles the will-they-won’t-they tension as they navigate feelings and fame. In the second season (spoiler alert), they will, unless Jessie’s old hangups get in the way.
While the second season finale ended on a high note, a return to Matafeo’s sweet, laugh-out-loud funny world is very welcome news. In a press release, Sarah Aubrey, Head of Original Content, HBO Max said: “Rose has created a show that strikes just the right balance of heart and humor. Starstruck is exactly the kind of rom-com that we love at HBO Max, and we are so happy to see Jessie and Tom’s story continue.”
Gregor Sharp of BBC Comedy Commissioning also said, “Starstruck is a blast of fresh comedy air, perfectly capturing the emotional mayhem of a new relationship with sharp wit, dry humor and a truthful eye–we can’t wait to see what Rose and the team have in store for Jessie and Tom in the new series.”
Matafeo, who wears a number of hats on the series, said, “A third? Sure. Fine. I’m truly thrilled to bring this incredibly talented cast back for a third installment, and equally excited to clamber into the director’s seat alongside my nice friend Alice Snedden who I cannot seem to get rid of.”
Sounds like Dad’s gonna have a good day Soundcore offers a selection of Sound Frames—glasses with built-in speakers that deliver clear, immersive sound to the space around your ears. They also have a built-in mic and can be used for phone calls by simply tapping to answer. Not dad’s thing? Perhaps the top-selling Liberty 3 Pro earbuds.
Starstruck is co-written by Matafeo, Snedden, and Nic Sampson. The series also stars Emma Sidi, Minnie Driver, Al Roberts, Joe Barnes, Lola-Rose Maxwell, Ambreen Razia, and more.
Netflix has released the official trailer for Boo, Bitch, an eight-episode live-action YA comedy limited series from Erin Ehrlich (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, King of the Hill) and Lauren Iungerich (On My Block, Awkward).
Lana Condor (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before) stars in the series as Erica Vu, a high school senior who’s lived her life safely under the radar. Over the course of one night, she seizes the opportunity to change her narrative and start living an epic life, only to find out the next morning… she’s a motherf*%king ghost.
In addition to Condor, cast also includes Zoe Colletti, Mason Versaw, Aparna Brielle, Tenzing Norgay Trainor and Jason Genao.
Writers Ehrlich and Iungerich created a new take on an original script optioned from newcomers and co-creators Tim Schauer and Kuba Soltysiak.
Ehrlich and Iungerich serve as showrunners and executive produce with Condor, Jonathon Komack Martin (Deadpool), Blake Goza (The Escort) and Jamie Dooner (On My Block). Schauer and Soltysiak will co-executive produce.
If you watched Oscar Isaac in Moon Knight and thought, “Cool, but remember when this guy used to be in stuff for adults?” we have great news for you. The Card Counter, a Paul Schrader movie starring Isaac as an ex-serviceman seeking revenge against an old enemy, is about as adult as it gets. It’s dark and chilling and is the latest addition to our list of the best movies to watch on HBO Max, along with The Janes, a timely documentary about an underground abortion network in the pre-Roe v. Wade era. Other recent recommendations include Navalny, a CNN documentary about Putin challenger Alexei Navalny; Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio’s well-received documentary George Carlin’s American Dream; and M. Night Shyamalan’s bizarro thriller Old.
A note about how this list was made: In the interest of keeping it relevant, we’re emphasizing movies recently added to HBO/HBO Max and new releases, but we’ve also made sure to add other movies we think you’ll want to know about. We’ll be updating it regularly.
Last updated June 10; newer additions are at the top
For fans of: Gambling, the darkness of the U.S. military, Oscar Isaac’s glowering face
Oscar Isaac, The Card Counter
Focus Features
Year: 2021 Director: Paul Schrader Stars: Oscar Isaac, Tye Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe Genre: Drama, Thriller Rating: R Metacritic score:77
Paul Schrader loves making movies about troubled men who let out their messed-up little thoughts in diaries. (He wrote Taxi Driver and wrote-directed First Reformed.) Oscar Isaac stars in Schrader’s latest as a former serviceman (with a very dark past) whose quiet life of brooding, gambling, and journaling is complicated when he meets a kid (Tye Sheridan) seeking revenge on a mutual enemy. [Trailer]
The Janes
For fans of: The power of women, timely issues
The Janes
HBO
Year: 2022 Director: Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:83
Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin’s documentary follows a group of women in the pre-Roe v. Wade era who bravely built an underground network that helped provide access to safe abortions for people with unwanted pregnancies. It was an organization formed in direct opposition to state legislation that banned abortions, and the sobering relevance of that can’t be overstated. [Trailer]
For fans of: Political documentaries, fighting authoritarian regimes
Navalny
CNN Films
Year: 2022 Director: Daniel Roher Stars: Alexei Navalny Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:82
Vladimir Putin’s greatest threat is Alexei Navalny, one of the few politicians and activists in Russia to publicly oppose the Russian government. As a man rallying others against Putin’s totalitarian regime, he’s been blacklisted by the state-controlled media and arrested by sham courts, but that’s the easy part of what is considered the most dangerous job in the world. In 2020, Navalny was poisoned by a lab-created nerve agent and nearly died. He and his supporters pointed fingers at the Kremlin, who denied any participation. This award-winning documentary, which was released before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, looks at Navalny and the poisoning, and the challenges of fighting Putin. [Trailer]
For fans of: Beloved comedians, looking at old comedy bits through a modern lens
George Carlin, George Carlin’s American Dream
George Carlin’s Estate/HBO
Year: 2022 Director: Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio Stars: George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Patton Oswalt, Stephen Colbert, Bill Burr Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:86
This documentary is kind of like a long version of one of those “George Carlin predicted this!” Facebook posts your uncle is always circulating, but in a good, well-crafted way. Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio‘s film looks at the life of one of the most influential comedians of all time with the goal of re-examining his jokes for our current era. It’s filled with famous talking heads from the world of comedy (Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Stephen Colbert, and more) who discuss their hero at length, and uses other funny people like Gillian Jacobs and Megan Stalter to read fan letters and diary entries. Both parts clock in at an intimidating four hours, but it’s an interesting spin on the traditional famous person documentary format. [Trailer]
For fans of: M. Night Shyamalan, old-age makeup, bad vacations
Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps, Old
Universal Pictures
Year: 2021 Director: M. Night Shyamalan Stars: Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Alex Wolff, Rufus Sewell, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:55
You can say many things about M. Night Shyamalan, but no one could ever make the claim that he doesn’t fully commit to his ideas. Shyamalan’s latest is Old, a horror-adjacent thriller about a vacationing family who discover that the mysteriously secluded beach they’re visiting is somehow causing them to age rapidly. With no way off the beach, everyone is powerless to it: The parents, played by Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps, are suddenly elderly; the kids (Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie) become teenagers become adults, and I won’t spoil too much, but let’s just say there’s an evil corporation involved. There’s also a supporting character named Mid-Sized Sedan. Old is the kind of gonzo, balls-to-the-wall movie we rarely get anymore, with every new occurrence more confoundingly entertaining than the last. I genuinely wish I could see Old for the first time again, and if you can suspend your disbelief a bit, you’ll have as great of a time watching it as I did. [Trailer]
For fans of: Questioning reality, incredible/hilarious action set pieces, learning about the origins of redpilling
Carrie-Ann Moss and Keanu Reeves, The Matrix Resurrections
Murray Close
Year: 1999, 2003, 2004, 2021 Director: Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski Stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss, Laurence Fishburne Genre: Sci-Fi Rating: R Metacritic score:73, 62, 47, 63
Ever heard of it? All the way back in 1999, the Wachowskis gave us The Matrix, a movie about reality being different than the reality we all think we’re living in, and now all these years later, Reddit users have turned “redpilling” into a whole men’s rights activism thing. How the world has changed! Despite all that, these movies still rule (even an OK Matrix movie is still a ton of fun to watch), with excellently choreographed fight scenes, and all of them are devoid of all the annoying quippy humor every action movie made today has. The polarizing fourth film, The Matrix Resurrections, is very, very different from the first three, but its strangeness and the fact that it exists at all make it a must-watch. [Trailer]
Year: 2022 Director: Matt Reeves Stars: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, John Turturro, Andy Serkis Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery, Crime Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:72
There seem to be two general reactions to The Batman: Either you think it’s the greatest Batman movie of all time, or you’re totally ambivalent about it. But you’ll never know until you watch it! Here, Robert Pattinson dons the big black cape and a whole Hot Topic’s worth of black eye makeup to play Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. The film follows Batman’s hunt for a killer with the peculiar quirk of leaving a trail of cryptic riddles in his wake, uncovering dark secrets about Gotham’s history of corruption along the way. Doing an incredible approximation of a New Yawk accent and wearing about 200 layers of prosthetics that rendered him wholly unrecognizable, Colin Farrell steals this movie with his performance as The Penguin, and we’ll soon get to see how he holds his own now that HBO Max went ahead and gave him his own spin-off series. [Trailer]
For fans of: Tony Hawk’s Twitter account, skateboarding
Tony Hawk and Sam Jones, Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off
HBO
Year: 2022 Director: Sam Jones Stars: Tony Hawk Genre: Biography, Sport, Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:74
Tony Hawk, the godfather of skateboarding and getting misrecognized in public, gets a documentary detailing the ups, downs, frontside grinds, and McTwists of his life. The film is at its best when it’s examining Hawk’s irrepressible drive to figure out a trick — his attempts at landing a 900 give Until the Wheels Fall Off its meaning and heart — and the cost of that drive in his personal life, but the basic recounts of his achievements as a young pro, which take up a good chunk of the first half, are mostly filler. The more interesting stuff happens when friends, family, and former enemies all explain why Tony is a skategod. -Tim Surette[Trailer]
Lana Condor helped reignite the romantic comedy when she starred in 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before(plus its two sequels), and while Moonshot will never achieve instant classic status like TATB, it’s still worth your time. Set in a future world where Mars has been colonized by humans (stay with me), Condor and Cole Sprouse play college students who sneak aboard a rocket headed for Mars to be united with their significant others. It has a kooky premise that involves Condor and Sprouse’s characters pretending to date until they, of course, actually begin to fall for each other, and is overall just a good, fun time. Plus, it’s set in space! [Trailer| Review]
More recommendations:
For fans of: Big boats, old-fashioned mystery and adventure, all-star casts, having enough champagne to fill the Nile
Gal Gadot, Death on the Nile
HBO Max
Year: 2022 Director: Kenneth Branagh Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Jennifer Saunders, Rose Leslie Genre: Mystery, Adventure Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:52
Cruises aren’t a good idea right now, but you can still get the feelings of big-boat adventures — large terraces overlooking the water, grand ballrooms, floating reverie, MURDER — with Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branaugh’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous 1937 novel. The mystery film is a whodunnit with a who’s who cast, which includes Gal Gadot, Annette Bening, Armie Hammer, and Branaugh (who does double duty as director). It’s an imperfect film, no doubt, but it has an old-fashioned sensibility to it that makes it a great escape from life’s doldrums. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
For fans of: Triumphant sports stories, Venus and Serena
King Richard
Warner Bros.
Year: 2021 Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green Stars: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:76
Will Smith won a Best Actor Oscar in this biopic of Richard Williams, father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams. He portrays Richard with careful intensity in his dedication to shaping his young daughters’ commitment to the sport, doing everything in his power and going to audacious lengths to help push them forward. King Richard goes beyond the confines of a typical movie like this with its dedication to crafting some spectacular tennis scenes, as well as scene-stealing supporting performances from Saniyya Sidney as Venus; Aunjanue Ellis as the sisters’ mother, Brandy Price; and Jon Bernthal as Venus’ coach. Plus, Beyoncé wrote a power ballad for it. [Trailer]
For fans of: Sand, cinematography, remakes worth a darn
Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, and Timothée Chalamet, Dune
Warner Bros.
Year: 2021 Director: Denis Villenueve Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac Genre: Drama, Science-Fiction Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:74
Denis Villenueve’s new take on Frank Herbert’s science-fiction novel (and David Lynch’s “classic” 1984 version) is a stunning film, despite all the browns. The hard sci-fi story follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a young royal, as his family is thrust into battle for a planet that is the only source for the most valuable substance in the universe, spice. But you are just watching for the giants worms, right? Dune is back on HBO Max for good after a simultaneous release in theaters and on HBO Max and a 90-day break from HBO Max to boost those box office numbers. –Tim Surette [Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi Stars: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura Genre: Drama Rating: NR Metacritic score:91
Adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi‘s Oscar-nominated film follows an aging, widowed actor (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who takes a job directing a stage adaptation of Uncle Vanya. He strikes up a curious bond with the young woman (Toko Miura) tasked with chauffeuring him back and forth, and begins to process his grief for his wife through their conversations. Its runtime clocks in at three hours total, but every hauntingly beautiful minute is worth it.[Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: Steven Spielberg Stars: Rachel Zegler, Ansel Elgort, Ariana DeBose, Rita Moreno, Mike Faist, David Alvarez Genre: Drama, Musical Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:85
Steven Spielberg‘s West Side Story is the kind of movie that makes the case that some remakes are good, actually. If you’re familiar with the Broadway musical, the 1961 film, or even just Romeo and Juliet, you already get the general idea: In 1957 New York, a young couple fall in deep, sweeping love at first sight, but their burgeoning romance fuels an all-out war between two rival gangs. Yes, Spielberg’s film has “I Feel Pretty,” “America,” and all the iconic Sondheim-Bernstein songs, but it also miraculously breathes new life into a familiar story with poignant updates (it’s kind of about gentrification now! The Sharks actually speak to each other in Spanish!) and great performances from Ariana DeBose, Mike Faist, and Rita Moreno, who starred in the original movie and plays a whole new character here. It’s a true old school movie musical, the kind of big, exuberant thing that’ll make you lean back in your chair and say, “Ah, cinema.” [Trailer]
For fans of: Being twee as F, Hollywood’s coolest actors
The French Dispatch
Year: 2021 Director: Wes Anderson Stars: Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Timothée Chalamet Genre: Drama, Comedy Rating: R Metacritic score:74
It’s not his best work, but Wes Anderson‘s die-hard fans won’t care. The visual director’s 2021 film follows the editor (Anderson staple Bill Murray) of an American newspaper in mid-20th century France and is divided into five vignettes in the form of stories written by his reporters. Each offers different looks and themes, and most importantly, a cast of major Hollywood talent. Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, and more were probably knocking down Anderson’s door to find out which sweaters they would be wearing in the film. -Tim Surette[Trailer]
For fans of: Hitchcock for today’s age, staying inside, pandemic paranoia
Zoë Kravitz, KIMI
HBO Max
Year: 2021 Director: Steven Soderbergh Stars: Zoë Kravitz Genre: Drama, Thriller Rating: NR Metacritic score:78
Zoë Kravitz plays an agoraphobe who works for a tech company with its own digital personal assistant. Her job is to listen to users’ failed requests and improve the gadget’s artificial intelligence, but when she thinks she hears a murder in one of the recordings, she inadvertently gets involved in the crime. It’s a thriller in the vein of Rear Window, but better than it should be thanks to Kravitz and the eye of director Steven Soderbergh. -Tim Surette[Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: Shawn Levy Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Taika Waititi Genre: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:62
This special effects-travaganza was one of the biggest box office hits of 2021 — a very weird year at the movies — and got unexpectedly positive reviews from critics who couldn’t help but be charmed by Ryan Reynolds, one of Hollywood’s most likable personas. Reynolds plays Guy, a non-player character in a video game who one day decides to take charge of his destiny and start doing what he feels like. This leads to him helping a gamer/computer programmer named Millie (Jodie Comer) try to take down an evil game company CEO (Taika Waititi) who stole code from her. It’s a pleasant, undemanding watch that seems more like a straight-to-streaming movie than a theatrical blockbuster. -Liam Mathews[Trailer]
For fans of: Spy jinx, movies that don’t require brain activity
Ralph Fiennes, The King’s Man
Hulu
Year: 2021 Director: Matthew Vaughn Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Matthew Goode, Djimon Hounsou Genre: Action, Adventure Rating: R Metacritic score:44
After a promising start, The Kingsman films have gotten worse and worse, meaning that The King’s Man, the third and most recent film in the franchise, is the worst. Yet audiences still gobble them up because the movies are only here to keep you occupied for a couple hours, and absolutely nothing more. This prequel gussies up the franchise by setting it around WWI as the Kingsman organization is formed after the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and it delivers a decent brain vacation of action and mediocre screenwriting. At the very least, watch to see Charles Dance in a comical mustache. –Tim Surette[Trailer]
For fans of: Bob Odenkirk, regular guys as badass guys
Bob Odenkirk, Nobody
Year: 2021 Director: Ilya Naishuller Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd Genre: Action, Thriller Rating: R Metacritic score:64
You know Bob Odenkirk from his role as the sniveling, conniving criminal lawyer Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, so one thing you’d never expect him to be is an action hero. But in the John Wick-esque thriller Nobody, Odenkirk gets serious, going from mild-mannered family man to ass-kicking machine when his house is robbed. It’s a fun movie loaded with violence that proves Odenkirk is a bonafide star who can do more than grovel or con his way out of a situation. -Tim Surette[Trailer]
For fans of: The circus, sideshow freaks and cons, an A-list cast and A-list sets
Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley
Hulu
Year: 2021 Director: Guillermo del Toro Stars: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe Genre: Drama Rating: R Metacritic score:70
Someone somewhere is still eating popcorn they bought while watching Nightmare Alley in the theaters on its mid-December premiere night and yet the movie is already on Hulu. That’s not a knock on the quality of Nightmare Alley, the traveling circus film noir from Guillermo del Toro, it’s more an indication of the speed of streaming. Bradley Cooper stars as a carnival worker in the 1930s and 1940s who learns to grift the rich and famous from other circus folk, and he’s joined by a stellar cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, and David Straitharn. Under del Toro’s eye, Nightmare Alley is a sight to behold, a time warp to the shady traveling sideshows and elegant art deco ballrooms of the era when everyone was working some sort of scheme. -Tim Surette[Trailer]
For fans of: High school, trauma bonding, indie film
Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler, The Fallout
HBO Max
Year: 2021 Director: Megan Park Stars: Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler Genre: Drama Rating: R Metacritic score:84
This is one of those indies that people who are super into film festivals have been talking about for months, and now the rest of us finally get to see it. It’s about two high school girls — played by Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler — who strike up a bond after surviving a school shooting. The movie is more of an empathetic look at their responses to it than it is about the actual tragedy, which is a refreshing change of pace from movies like this, which typically try to turn their characters into inspiring symbols of resilience. The Fallout is more interested in exploring how these kids get through the day after witnessing something unthinkable. Shailene Woodley and Julie Bowen co-star. [Trailer]
For fans of: Matt ‘n Ben, medieval times, seeing the same story told several different times
Matt Damon and Adam Driver, The Last Duel
20th Century Studios
Year: 2021 Director: Ridley Scott Stars: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck Genre: Drama, Action Rating: R Metacritic score:67
You might’ve missed The Last Duel when it was released in theaters, but it’s actually the better — and much more subtle — of Ridley Scott’s two 2021 films (apologies to House of Gucci). Set in medieval France, it’s based on the true story of the last trial by combat, which takes place when a knight, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), challenges a squire, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), to a duel after Jean’s wife (Jodie Comer) accuses Jacques of raping her. The movie is divided into three parts, showing how each character interprets the events of the film differently. Damon and Ben Affleck co-wrote the film with Nicole Holofcener, and Affleck totally steals the movie in a supporting role as the flamboyant Count Pierre d’Alençon. [Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: Michael Showalter Stars: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Vincent D’Onofrio Genre: Drama, Biopic Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:55
Jessica Chastain lights up what could’ve otherwise been a by-the-books biopic of one of the most famous televangelists of all time, Tammy Faye Bakker. It follows the rise and fall of Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim (Andrew Garfield), through the ’70s as they created an enormously popular religious broadcast network that was eventually destroyed by a host of scandals. As Bakker, Chastain wears some crazy prosthetics and some even crazier makeup, but she also finds the human being in there that made Bakker such a fascinating cultural figure. [Trailer]
For fans of: Saxophone music, seeing divisive icons in a new light
Kenny G, Listening to Kenny G
HBO
Year: 2021 Director: Penny Lane Stars: Kenny G Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:81
Maybe the words “Kenny” and “G” send chills down your spine, unearthing deep-seated trauma from that time you got stuck in an elevator. That notion isn’t ignored in this fun documentary about the curly-locked saxophonist, which not only looks at the legend himself, but also his polarizing position among musicians and normal folk alike. Director Penny Lane uses Kenny G as a jumping-off point for questions about taste, making this more than just a typical music documentary. –Tim Surette[Trailer]
For fans of: Intimate looks at the inner lives of celebrities
DMX: Don’t Try to Understand
HBO
Year: 2021 Director: Christopher Frierson Stars: DMX Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Metacritic score:91
It’s easy to be skeptical of documentaries about deceased celebrities, especially ones who were as beloved and influential as Earl “DMX” Simmons, but this one stands apart for the fact that the late rapper was actually involved. It follows a year in DMX’s life, beginning in early 2019 as he rebuilds his life and career after serving a 12-month sentence in prison. The film contains interviews with DMX and gives a look into his private life, all while examining the impact he had on culture. There’s no way to watch a film like this without mourning the artist at its center who died too soon, but it’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to learn more about the person DMX was behind the music. [Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: James Gunn Stars: Idris Elba, John Cena, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Joel Kinnaman Genre: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi Rating: R Metacritic score:72
Not to be confused with 2016’s Suicide Squad (there’s no “the” in that one, get it?), James Gunn directs this irreverent superhero movie about a team of villains who are recruited by the government to go to a remote island and destroy an evil starfish. With a cast that includes Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, and Viola Davis and over-the-top violence that fits the franchise, it’s a big improvement from the first Suicide Squad movie. Once you’re done watching it, you can check out HBO Max’s spin-off series Peacemaker, which centers on Cena’s character. [Trailer]
One of the coolest things about HBO Max is that it’s home to the Studio Ghibli collection, putting Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest films in one place. Spirited Away is probably his most famous one, having won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It came out in 2001, and all these years later, it remains a stunningly animated, wholly moving film, following a little girl named Chihiro whose parents are turned into pigs by a witch, forcing her to enter the witch’s treacherous, mysterious world as she tries to find a way to free her parents. It’s an absolutely magical experience, and the perfect gateway to Miyazaki’s work. [Trailer]
Year: 1987 Director: Norman Jewison Stars: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance Rating: PG Metacritic score:83
HBO Max has a great Turner Classic Movies catalog, and Moonstruck is just one of many selections to choose from — but personally, I’d say it’s one of the best. The 1987 rom-com stars Cher as Loretta Castorini, a disillusioned widow who falls in love with her new fiancé’s estranged and erratic brother, Ronnie (Nicolas Cage). Not a single character in this movie acts like a person you’d ever run into in real life, but they’re all operating on the same level of craziness, which is what makes it all work so well. It’s funny and shamelessly goofy, completed by Cher and Cage’s crackling chemistry. [Trailer]
For fans of: Acts of fan service, superhero team-ups, long movies made longer
Henry Cavill, Jason Mamoa, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, and Ray Fisher, Zack Snyder’s Justice League
HBO Max
Year: 2021 Director: Zack Snyder Stars: Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Jared Leto, Jason Momoa Genre: Drama, Action Rating: NR Metacritic score:54
What else is there to say about Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Much like the original 2017 non-Snyder cut, this Justice League follows a team of superheroes, comprised of Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), as they attempt to save the world from a powerful supervillain, but this version has new scenes and world-building elements that Joss Whedon’s version did not. It’s also much longer, clocking in at just over four hours. [Trailer]
I can’t think of a more wholesome time than watching a documentary about how Sesame Street came to be. Back in the ’60s, a group of geniuses had the radical idea to make kids’ programming educational, which of course ended up becoming one of the most successful and influential TV series of all time. It’s fun to see people like Jim Henson and Frank Oz when they were young and totally uncertain about the gamble they were making on this show about friendly puppets. [Trailer]
For fans of: Epic fantasies, friendship, dangerous jewelry
Viggo Mortensen, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Warner Bros.
Year: 2001, 2002, 2003 Director: Peter Jackson Stars: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler Genre: Drama, Fantasy Rating: PG-13 Metacritic score:92, 87, 94
If HBO Max only had the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy I would still confidently call it the best streaming service out there. Luckily, it has a lot more stuff than that (clearly), but that doesn’t make it any less exciting that we LOTR fans can watch the full versions of Peter Jackson’s sprawling, visually stunning adventure series whenever we want. Even if you haven’t seen them, you’re probably familiar with the general plot: Frodo (Elijah Wood), a hobbit, goes on a quest to destroy the extraordinarily powerful One Ring and the dark lord who made it. Each extended installment clocks in at well over three hours, but HBO Max also has the regular theatrical cuts (which, admittedly, are all about three hours) if you’re more of a casual fan. There’s no wrong way to watch LOTR. [Trailer]
Year: 2021 Director: James Wan Stars: Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young Genre: Horror Rating: R Metacritic score:51
HBO Max has a big selection of horror movies that includes things like The Shining and the Conjuring series, but I’m choosing to highlight James Wan’s frankly batty Malignant to represent them all. It’s an audacious, wholly original thrill ride about a woman (Annabelle Wallis) who keeps having visions of people being killed, only to realize the murders are actually happening in real life. I won’t spoil anything, but when she eventually learns who the murderer is, it results in one of the wildest horror-action showcases you’ll likely ever see. Malignant is a cult classic in the making, and it deserves our respect. [Trailer]
For fans of: Tom Wambsgans, English countrysides, repressed people
Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, Pride & Prejudice
Focus Features
Year: 2005 Director: Joe Wright Stars: Kiera Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen Genre: Drama, Romance Rating: PG Metacritic score:82
Before he was TV’s saddest man, Matthew Macfadyen starred in the best Jane Austen film adaptation of all time. (Yeah, I said it! I’m not afraid!) Joe Wright directs this version of the classic story, where the headstrong Elizabeth Bennett (Keira Knightley) meets Mr. Darcy (Macfadyen), whose deep-set emotional repression complicates their fledgling connection. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Tom Wambsgans flex his hand. Is Pride & Prejudice mostly a story about a bunch of people going to each other’s houses? Absolutely. Is that part of what makes it so good? Duh. [Trailer]
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The 2022 Tony Awards, held at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night, recognized the work of Broadway’s first season since the pandemic shutdown. The ceremony offered everything one could hope for: a magnificent host in Ariana DeBose, the 31-year-old triple-threat product of the Great White Way (which the Afro-Latina joked is “becoming more of a nickname as opposed to a how-to guide”) who won an Oscar less than three months ago; numerous showstopping performances, especially from Paradise Square’s Joaquina Kalukango and MJ’s Myles Frost; and a wide assortment of winners. Those winners included breakthroughs like Kalukango, hot on the heels of her nominated turn in Slave Play, and Frost, for his Broadway debut as Michael Jackson, as well as previously-honored veterans like Company’s Patti LuPone (fitting on a night of Stephen Sondheim celebration) and Skeleton Crew’s Phylicia Rashad. And the trailblazing Pulitzer winner A Strange Loop triumphed in the one category which consistently moves the needle at the box office, best musical (though some are disappointed that only two of its field-leading 11 nominations resulted in wins).
As has increasingly been the case in recent years — see Fun Home, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, The Band’s Visit and Hadestown — the best musical winner came from Off Broadway with considerable support from the New York theater community (and, in this case, also from Jennifer Hudson, whose producing win secured her EGOT status). And, as was the case with several of those prior winners, it vanquished formidable competition that will be more marketable on the road, in this case the box-office smashesMJ and Six, suggesting that commercially-minded road producers may no longer carry as much sway in Tonys voting as they once did.
I found it notable that major winners emanated from across the whole season — The Lehman Trilogy, which closed back in January, won best play; Company, which opened in December, claimed best musical revival (the 1971 original won best musical); and Take Me Out, which ran from April through yesterday, was named best play revival (the 2003 original won best play). Those three productions clearly had deep support across the board, with Lehman and Company tying for the most wins of all shows with five each, including in categories in which it was competing against itself: Lehman’s Simon Russell Beale topped two costars to win best actor in a play (as did Take Me Out’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson in the best featured actor in a play category), and LuPone topped one costar to win best featured actress in a musical.
But voters picked their spots to recognize standouts from other shows, too — 11 shows walked away with at least one Tony — including both leading actress winners, neither exactly household names: Kalukango for Paradise Square, which will likely get a badly-needed box office boost as a result of her “Let It Burn” performance and emotional win (both of which received standing ovations), and Deirdre O’Connell for the experimental play Dana H., which closed in November.
Meanwhile, coincidentally or not, many people who are household names — or are at least very well known for their screen acting — did not do particularly well, with the exception of Ferguson and Rashad. Going home emptyhanded were American Buffalo’s Sam Rockwell (his show was certainly not helped by David Mamet’s rightward turn), How I Learned to Drive’s Mary-Louise Parker, The Music Man’s Hugh Jackman, Macbeth’s Ruth Negga, Take Me Out’s Jesse Williams, Mr. Saturday Night’s Billy Crystal and Clyde’s Uzo Aduba.
Alicia Keys performed at the AO Arena in Manchester last night, and brought out hometown hero Johnny Marr to help her cover the Smiths‘ 1983 hit “This Charming Man.” Though the pairing may seem like an odd one, Keys and Marr actually have history together. In 2014, they recorded a song with Kendrick Lamar for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 soundtrack and performed it together on Fallon.
Watch Keys and Marr cover “This Charming Man” below.
Earlier this year, Marr released his fourth solo album Fever Dreams Pts 1 – 4, and chatted with SPIN about the project.
“Well, it was probably when I was running, because I think about what I’m doing a lot, like all artists,” he recalled about how the album’s title came to be. “You can be walking towards your car or you can be pouring a juice or something and an idea just seems to drop down from the heavens. I was kind of like this when I was a kid, really, where plenty of them are just kind of musings, but you know when something taps you on the shoulder and goes, ‘Think about me for the next few days.’ This idea Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 just drops out from somewhere, it might have been walking towards my car, I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“I just thought, ‘Well, okay, I know a good title when I hear one.’ I was like, ‘What’s this Pts 1-4 all about?’ It gave me an opportunity to do a little bit of lateral thinking and then I just didn’t want to call it Fever Dreams,” he added. “I liked this Pts 1-4. It was intriguing to me. I was going, ‘What can I do with that?’ I had never made a record that was in different parts. Then, I got this idea, ‘Well maybe I can stagger the release and that might be cool for bands.’ This is all before the pandemic. ‘That might be a cool way of doing things. A new way of doing things. I’ve never done that before.’ Of course, when the record company heard about this they thought I was a genius, like some marketing genius. It was purely some artistic thing. I just liked the sound of it.”
We meet many first time film directors here at Raindance Film Festival HQ.
Directing your first movie is always a fantastically challenging experience. The process of getting your first movie onto the big screen can end in tears if you fall foul of the producer or the budget and schedule.
A budget is a simple list of all the stuff and people you need and the amount of money required to pay for it. A schedule is a list of the dates and times you need the stuff. Both are incredibly tedious to produce, but without a budget and schedule, it’s very difficult to make your film.
Even with a no-budget film, you will still need a list of the stuff and people you need, and a schedule of when and where you need everything to show up.
Messing up the budget really impacts on the film.
Here is a handy list of items that cost money, and can easily spiral out of control if you aren’t careful. Most of these pitfalls are from lack of forward planning.
1. The Development Budget
When a film gets into production, the story rights need to be acquired and paid for. At this point, the producer controlling the script rights totals up all the money spent to date and presents an invoice so the production team can recoup the money they have paid, plus a profit.
Expenses include travel, accommodation and entertainment at places like Cannes Film Festival, location scouting, casting agents fees and that weird one: “Office Overhead.” Plus of course option fees paid the writer to date, insurance, banking and legal fees.
This can easily get out of hand, and when the final production budget is in the bank minus the development costs, directors can have a nasty surprise. Directors may have no alternative other than cutting pages out of the script.
I know two different writer/directors who found that over 10% of their production budget was gobbled up by extras added to the development budget.
Make sure you keep on top of the development budget.
2. The DoP
Choosing the right Director of Photography (or not) will really impact on your budget.
Some DoPs will literally take over the directing for you, blocking out the scenes in the rush to get the shots completed before wrap. This can lead to a war between the DoP and the director. Such conflict can ruin the morale on the set and make the shoot next to unbearable. But at least the film will get shot in this scenario.
Other DoPs are so eager to please they fall over backwards at each of the director’s whims without the benefit of courteous but professional criticism. The resulting shoot meanders and can quickly fall day after expensive day behind schedule. (see #10 below)
3. Location Location Location
Every time you move from one location to the next the cost rockets. Hence the typically low-to-no budget shoots in a single location movie like Paranormal Activity. If you desperately need a second location look out for the two-for-one, i.e. the front of a house can pose as one location and the rear garden as a completely different one.
4. Casting Agent
There are two factors here: Firstly, a skilled casting agent can save you a fortune, which is good. Secondly, too often directors fantasise about cast until it’s too late, and then hire a casting agent to get them out of jail to no avail. Money is flushed down the drain.
5. Let’s Fix It In Post
Every time I hear a director say, “We’ll fix that shot in post,” I cringe. I’ve worked on 68 features and over 700 commercials. Every time the director made that choice on a set, heads would roll a few days into post-production where the budget would start to rocket.
A director who thinks some sort of post-production miracle can save sloppy location shooting is lazy and ultimately a very expensive director.
6. Music
Including uncleared music in a movie is probably the single most costly mistake a filmmaker can make. Over the past 20 years I have had so many bad experiences with festival films. They’ve had to be pulled last minute because the filmmaker lied about whether the music was cleared or not. We even had one case where sales agents and distributors were nosing around a movie. Sadly it had an expensive song “The Girl from Ipanema” in it (uncleared). Needless to say that movie didn’t sell.
7. Catering
This is such a no-brainer you probably are wondering why it’s even on this list. Problem is, no one ever considers the cost of the chilli and beans Aunt Emma is going to cook. Nor the cost of cutlery and plates. Before long you have blown a good chunk of your budget. Now you have to decide whether or not your entire cast and crew can survive the next 3 weeks on nothing but white rice. Or do have to cut a special effects shot to save the catering budget?
By the way, I once spent eleven days on nothing but white rice and I can tell you – it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
8. Insurance
If I had a buck for every time we get late afternoon panic calls form filmmakers desperate for a magic insurance telephone number I could retire to the south of France.
No one ever thinks about insurance in time to budget for it properly. And you almost always need it at some point in the process.
9 Transport
I am sure your producer has allocated for car and van rental with the necessary fuel charges, taxes and tolls. But what of the petrol or taxi charges added to invoices of cast and crew? I had such a situation last week where I agreed to the fee but when the invoice arrived it included a whopper taxi bill. When queried, I was asked how else the equipment was going to get there. Recently I have discovered that we can also use discount vouchers to cut down the car rental cost. Many online portals such as VoucherBin offer a variety of voucher codes and rental car deals from Carrentals.Co.Uk, Argus Car Hire, Budget Rent A Car etc, that can become saviour for last minute business and movie trips. To say nothing about Uber, Lyft and the like.
10 Shooting Ratio
In the good old days of celluloid was all about the shooting ratio. Because film stock and processing was so expensive, producers, directors and DoPs kept an eagle eye on the ratio between consumed footage and the final film. Most indie films were shot on a ration between 5:1 and 10:1. Ie: 5:1 ratio means that 5 minutes worth of film stock was used to cover each minute of screen time.
In the digital age, image capture and storage is so cheap that some directors shoot over and over – as much as 100:1. Can you imagine the challenges of editing 100 hours of footage into a completed one hour film?
High shooting ratios aren’t clever, necessarily. But they sure are expensive.
Fade Out
Are you having trouble shooting on a budget? Would you like to learn how to get your script onto screen with a limited budget?
Why not come to the Lo To No Budget Filmmaking weekend class. I will show you how to take your screenplay and put value for money onto the screen with dozens of low-budget shooting tips. On the second day I will show you how to raise the cash, and how to use free PR to turn your movie into this year’s cult classic.
The child fell into an inground swimming pool at a residence on Iberville Boulevard around 3:47 p.m., according to the call received by Repentigny police.
Police found that the swimming pool was abandoned, “black and muddy,” Sgt. Bruno Marier said.
Two neighbours were already in the water trying to find the child. The child was eventually located in the deepest part of the pool.
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A police officer had to dive to get him out of the water and hand him over to the paramedics.
“We are still awaiting news of his state of health, but we have been able to determine that he spent about 20 minutes in the bottom of the water, so we fear the worst,” Sgt. Marier said.
Several adults and children were present at the scene.
An investigation is underway.
Saint-Lambert Drowning
A four-year-old boy lost his life on Saturday after being found unresponsive in a residential swimming pool in Saint-Lambert.
According to information provided by Longueuil police (SPAL), emergency services were called at about 4:10 p.m. after the discovery of the young boy in a swimming pool on Normandy Avenue.
“Manoeuvres were quickly undertaken, as soon as the first responders arrived. A cardiac defibrillator was also used,” Longueuil police said on social media.
The child was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead shortly after 5 p.m.
The 75th Annual Tony Awards, held on June 12, 2022, honored immense talent and showcased mind blowing performances from Broadway’s greatest stars. However, one of the most notable aspects of the night was Tony Award winning actor Bryan Cranston‘s enormous beard that was impossible to miss.
Bryan Cranston and Tony Goldwyn Presenting at the 75th Tony Awards on June 12, 2022 (Charles Sykes/AP/Shutterstock)
While presenting the award for Best Performance by an Actor for a Leading Role in a Play, Bryan walked on stage while looking confident and chatting with his fellow Network co-star Tony Goldwyn. During their banter, Tony made a sly jab at Bryan’s facial hair, addressing the elephant in the room. “Well can we please get to work so you can get back to looking for your lost razor blade?” he quipped, making the audience uproar with laughter. There was a moment of (likely scripted) tense silence between the two while Bryan blinked at Tony nefariously before continuing with his speech.
Bryan first debuted his new bushy look while on the red carpet for the 2022 Tony Awards. There he wore a streamlined black suit, while his wife Robin Dearden looked elegant in an off the shoulder black floral gown and brown shades.
Bryan Cranston and Robin Dearden on the Red Carpet During the 75th Tony Awards on June 12, 2022 (Evan Agostini/AP/Shutterstock)
The new look comes as a surprise to many, because a few months earlier, the Malcolm in the Middlestar was seen with a much more tame looking scruff at the Broadway premiere of the play “American Buffalo.” There, he also sported a pink flannel shirt and classic dad jeans.
Bryan Cranston attends the Broadway opening night of “American Buffalo” at Outside of Circle in the Square Theatre, in New York”American Buffalo” Broadway Opening Night, New York, United States – 14 Apr 2022 (Greg Allen/Invision/AP/Shutterstock)
However, this isn’t the only time we’ve seen the 66-year-old show a more cleaned up look, as his face is as versatile as his acting range. In a hilarious photoshoot with Esquire in January of 2022, he posed in the same bed with fellow Breaking Bad co-star Aaron Paul, while sporting a completely clean shaven face.
From what was seen at the Tony Awards, whether the actor’s decision to drastically alter his physical appearance was for an upcoming role remains a mystery. Either way, his new grown out beard is giving the internet lots of comedy material, because no one can seem to look away.
Video game developer Studio Wildcard revealed a trailer for Ark II during the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase on Sunday.
The adventure survival game, a sequel to 2015’s Ark: Survival Evolved, stars the voice of Vin Diesel as the hero protagonist and freedom fighter Santiago along with Moana star Auli’i Cravalho as the character’s daughter Meeka.
Ark II is being created in Unreal Engine 5 with photorealistic real-time lighting technology. Diesel serves as an executive producer on the game, which launches in 2023 on Steam Early Access and as a console launch exclusive for Xbox Series X/S.
The accompanying show, ARK: The Animated Series, has fourteen 30-minute episodes in post-production.
View the trailer for ARK II below, followed by poster images of key characters from the show.
‘Ark: The Animated Series’
Courtesy of Studio Wildcard
The BBC’s brand new six-part drama Sherwood, starring David Morrissey and Lesley Manville, premieres this week on Monday June 13.
Dramatist James Graham, who wrote the award-winning Quiz and Brexit: The Uncivil War turns his pen to his hometown of Sutton-in-Ashfield near Nottingham’s former coal mines, a place scarred and divided by events of the miners’ strike of 1984.
Graham loosely follows the real-life events when two murders occurred on this still traumatised town.
BBC Studios will distribute the series internationally.
The Janes might just be the most important documentary of the year. Now streaming on HBO and HBO Max, The Janes takes viewers back to Chicago in the 1960s and 70s, when a group of women ran—and were eventually arrested for—an illegal underground abortion network. They used code names, safe houses, and fronts in order to secretly provide the then widely-illegal procedure to hundreds who needed it. As the women, now all middle-aged or older, explain in interviews, they tried to provide their clients the kind of compassionate, comprehensive abortion care they never received themselves. But in the shadow of the looming Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, The Janes doesn’t feel like an archive of the past—it feels like a playbook for the future.
Somewhere in the southwest of England is a sprawling stone estate nestled along hedge-lined lanes that you can rent, complete with wood fireplaces, low oak beams, an apple tree in the yard and a room for a baby grand piano. But the listing on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com might not mention one small complication: It comes with a naked dude in the yard.
This is where Alex Garland’s sophisticated horror film “Men” is set. All the action takes place in and around this estate, a countryside both sublimely beautiful and yet also grimy and filthy. What Garland is exploring is nature — but not nature itself. He’s after the nature of man. Not Man, but the base, sickening mankind that has proved toxic of late but has always been.
Into this 500-year estate comes Harper, a young widow from London who hasn’t really processed the final moments of her marriage. She’s played by rising star Jessie Buckley, pitch-perfect in every scene, alternating anger, fear, boldness and timidity. Her Harper has booked a nice few days to unwind far away in the countryside, in nature. But she keeps coming across the nature of man.
Over 100 minutes, Harper will encounter many men — a vicar, a policeman, the house owner, the unclothed man in the yard and even a 9-year-old boy, among them — who are needy, vain, misogynistic, morally bankrupt and unkind. They all find some reason to blame Harper for something, the burden of so many women. Part of the film’s attraction is that all the males are played by Rory Kinnear, a shapeshifter of the highest order. But the effect is pulled to ridiculous lengths by projecting his face on the 9-year-old’s body, undercutting the whole contrivance.
The problem with “Men” isn’t with the acting. It’s with a script that could be described as attempting at something like arty horror and can’t stick the landing. Often it is tedious, slow to build and pretentious. Garland has proved masterful in sci-fi with “Ex Machina” and the criminally underappreciated series “Devs,” but here with ancient myths, thick forests, figurative stone carvings and heavy symbolism, he’s lost his way. Often, it is clumsy, like his riff of Eden. After Harper innocently eats an apple on the estate’s front yard, she is reproached by the owner and we can see the future: Men being nasty. “I didn’t come here to be afraid,” she says, but this is the hand she’s dealt.
This is a film pregnant with Big Ideas, where the visuals and music and dialogue are all heightened to an overthought level. Harper goes into a tunnel in the woods and happily creates vocal echoes — until she is thwarted by a sinister male figure. The tunnel equals uterus, we suspect. But we need more. And the film’s horrific end sequence, which shows a female-less reproduction of a sequence of men giving birth to a line of bloody, unhappy men, feels too much, like a cinematic lecture about masculinity with special effects. At one point, Harper calls the police and the dispatcher could represent all of us when she asks: “Explain what’s happening, please.”
Director of photography Rob Hardy, a longtime Garland collaborator, is a master at stillness and signals, capturing the beauty of a forest in one moment for its wildflowers, rain droplets in a puddle or a slo-mo dandelion in the wind, but also its terror and muck. Yet his work is so heavy with allegory and meaning that it gets numbing.
At its heart, “Men” has some interesting things to say, about grief and loss and guilt. Harper, who had a terrible fight before she lost her husband, has an unthinkable recovery ahead. But her trip to the countryside has led to a dead deer corpse with specific but opaque meaning, some W.B. Yeats quotes thrown in there and a clown car full of nasty men, one naked. Reviewing this Airbnb offering is never going to end up with it getting five stars.
“Men,” an A24 release, is rated R for “disturbing and violent content, graphic nudity, grisly images and language.” Running time: 100 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
___
MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
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ATxSG 2022, 01: Covid effects result in lower participation, media gets the axe
It was where it began, for me. The location this year was neither the top-of-the-line Marina Bay Sands Exhibition Centre nor the centrally located Suntec City. AsiaTechxSingapore (ATxSG), the new avatar of CommunicAsia, moved back to Singapore Expo, where I had first visited it, some 25 years ago. Though a standard exhibition and conference venue, it just cannot compare with Marina Bay Sands. As an add-on, rooms in the Atria adjunct were booked by a few brands, as their hospitality and one-on-one interview sessions venue. Expo is near the East Coast of Singapore, near Changi Airport, close to the end of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) train line of that sector. There is a station named Expo, and once you get off there, you can walk to the venue. It is a long walk, but then so is it in every MRT station, especially when you are changing lines. You could end up walking close to one km within the station before you reach your platform.
Reaching well before the scheduled opening time of 9 am, I was stopped from getting my card by security personnel, who insisted that I scan a QR displayed on a poster. It was not mentioned why was this required and what was it about. But it as mandatory. So, I scanned the QR code. That merely led me to a website. I asked the man what was I to do with the website. He said that I should open the website and fill in a form, submit it and show the receipt to him. The form was mainly about Covid, and I had a certificate with me, endorsing my triple vaccination. The certificate cut no ice with him, and he allowed me to proceed only after I did as told.
Form submitted, I headed for the room where the media badges were being distributed. I got mine soon, a folded sheet of paper, same identification on either side, which was to be inserted in the plastic cover and attached to a lanyard, which had a piece of lace attached to it, and it had to be hung around my neck. So, I was ready. But before I made it to the opening session, I was desperate to reach the media room, where I could get access to my pen-drive, and have a quick cup of tea. For two days, I had tried to find some place or somebody who had a USB slot that they could let me use. I was not carrying any laptop, and it was not required, for the media-room always had a number of PCs freely available for use by the media. To my horror, nobody had a USB slot. Those that did, had it on official computers and were not allowed to make any personal use of it. Internet Cafes are all but extinct in Singapore. I even went to the Public Library, which allowed free use of PCs, but none of them had USB slots. Desperate, I had called Patricia Yee, who has been my contact person at this event for around a decade, a day before. She could not help either.
It was necessary that I access that vital bit of information on my pen-drive, and it would take less than five minutes to do so. So, I looked around for the Media Centre. What I saw was shocking. A couple of chairs and tables, a few papers scattered on them and… that’s all. This was the Media Centre, at an event that attracts 10,000 visitors. There were no PCs or laptops, no facilities for tea, coffee, snacks and lunch, as had been the practice for decades. I met Khalifah Hafiz of Lewis PR, who was on the ATxSG account and had been in touch with me on email before the event, and he confirmed that this was all that they had arranged for the media this year. On my pen-drive, he could not help me get a single laptop or PC to view it at what could be Asia’s biggest Communication event, with at least 5,000 laptops around. I sent an email to Patricia, expressing my shock, but she seemed completely nonchalant.
A brand called Wokato emerged as the good Samaritan, serving tea and coffee to the visitors. Tea consumed, I took a round of the three halls that had been occupied by the exhibition. What about the free-flowing beer, snacks, cakes and ice-cream? Banish the thought. Turnout was significantly thinner than in previous years, and even the stalls/booths were fewer. Desperate to hook a buyer, many stall personnel latched on to me and started singing praise of their hardware or software. When told that I was a journalist and not a buyer, I was met with four types of reactions. Some got impressed and passed me some gifts. Some others insisted that I write an entire article about their company and products, but did not let go any gift. Still others turned the cold shoulder, wondering what is a ‘journalist’, or, even if they knew, what was he doing there? The fourth reaction was the most interesting. They said, “Okay. So you are a journalist. But surely even publishers need software and hardware solutions, so how about taking a look at our line and buying something.” Unfortunately for them, I am India Correspondent for the Paris-based filmfestivals.com, and have no say in the running of the website.
Sans breakfast, an early lunch was the best idea. There is a food court outside the complex, with 7-8 different stalls/restaurants. I headed that way. What greeted me were serpentine queues at every outlet. There could be up to 50 people waiting for their turn to order. Yes, there was a restaurant within the exhibition complex, but either it lacked variety or the prices were sky-high. Out here, the prices were high, but still affordable. With no choice, I joined the line outside the Indian food stall. My turn came after an hour, and then the lady at the stall announced, with no compassion whatsoever, that food had run out. What was the option now? Join another queue, wait another hour, and then,…! I decided to get away. Surely there must be a McDonald’s or a KFC in the vicinity. Across the road, I found one McDonald’s, and after a short wait, I got my order. Not as fulfilling as a regular Indian meal, but enough to keep me going.
Back to the venue. Almost every other stall had a vertical roulette wheel installed. Whosoever wanted a gift, which could be just a pen or something much more valuable, had to first scan their QR Code, fill in the form, with all their personal details, and then get a chance to spin the wheel. Obviously, this was their way of creating a database. But it also meant that freebies were a rarity this time round. The generosity seen at earlier editions was noticeably missing. Initially, the security staff demanded that you show your scan result every time you moved from one hall to another. This was dispensed with later, and all the three halls were inter-connected. You could walk from Hall 3 to 4 to 5 seamlessly, without even noticing that you had changed halls.
ATxSG consisted of ATxSummit (organised by IMDA: By invitation only), ATxAI (organised by IMDA), ATxAI (organised by IMDA), ATxEnterprise Headliners, ATxEnterprise Headliners, ATxInspire – SG Women in Tech (organised by IMDA), ATxInspire – SG Women in Tech (organised by IMDA), BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia, SatelliteAsia &Asia Satellite Business Week, TechXLR8 Asia, InnovFest x Elevating Founders and ‘hacksingapore’. The whole event was organised jointly by Informa Tech and The Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore. Informa Tech is a British company, so no wonder there quite a few officials who spoke with the Queen’s English accent. Informa claim on their website that every year, they welcome 14.000 subscribers to their research, nearly 4 million unique visitors a month to their digital communities, over 18,200 students to their training programs and 225,000 delegates to their events.
Though I usually attend the event on all three days, this time, I decided to cut down my visits by half, and went there only on the first day (when I lost two hours trying to get lunch) and for half-a-day on the second day. There were no statistics and information available about ATxSG either on the ATxSG website or on the Informa Tech website, even ten days after the event had concluded. Neither were there any media releases about the event.
One event that I always attend annually is the Hughes breakfast on the 2nd of June. It used to be on the 70th storey of the Swissotel Stamford, giving you a breathtaking view of the city, quite apt for a satellite operations company. This year, cost-cutting did not spare this giant of an operator too. They moved to a hotel called Andaz (that name is a rarity in Singapore), a Hyatt property at Fraser Street, in the Bugis MRT complex. Breakfast was scheduled for 7 am, and I could make it only by 7.30, which was good enough, because the proceedings began a little later. As against a lavish buffet, we were handed cardboard boxes. The boxes had four items, three of which I could not eat, so I settled for some fruit, a croissant and a cup of tea. When asked for grapes, they said they had run out of grapes.
Vaibhav Magow of Hughes took the stage and pretty much took control of all formal proceedings. This year, there was nobody from their principal office in the USA present at the occasion. Magow is the Vice President, International Division, leading Hughes broadband systems sales effort in the Asia Pacific, Middle East/Africa, Europe and Russia/CIS regions. Several speakers had their say. Hughes Communications India Private Limited is a market leader with an installed base of 125,000+ sites and Fortune 100 customers and government.
Hughes Communications India, (HCI), a majority-owned subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), an innovator in satellite and multi-transport technologies and networks for 50 years, and Bharti Airtel Limited (“Airtel”), India’s premier communications solution provider, announced last January the formation of a joint venture to provide satellite broadband services in India.
Operational as HCI, the entity combines the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) businesses of both companies to offer flexible and scalable enterprise networking solutions using satellite connectivity for primary transport, back-up and hybrid implementation. The agreement, announced in May 2019, has received all statutory approvals, including those from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and Department of Telecom (Government of India) and the joint venture has been formed. Now serving Airtel VSAT customers, HCI has a combined base of over 200,000 VSATs.
When this writer asked a senior Magow colleague from HCI whether there is any conflict of interest, since Hughes has been working with Reliance for the last 26 years or so, and now they have Airtel on board, the official replied that neither party had any objection and Hughes was striving to keep both telecom operators happy.
If it had to be an event where journalists were to denied everything that they were provided in all previous editions, the journalists themselves would have no say in the matter. But it would be courteous and considerate to inform them in advance that this was going to be the case. Then, it would be up to them to take a call, and attend, or stay away. In the present scenario, they were trapped. Not all journalists have their publishers paying for their expenses related to the trip, which could amount to SGD2,000-3,000. I go on my own, and am happy to enjoy the privileges that come my way, after being a journalist for 52 years. On the other hand, I might reconsider making it to future ATxSGs, if media are treated like they were in 2022.
Nickelodeon is launching its Intergalactic Shorts Program 2.0 which opens its search for new and diverse creators from across the globe, Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation and Paramount Animation, announced Monday.
The Intergalactic Shorts Program 2.0 will focus on new voices and nurturing their vision for original comedy-drive content with an eye to representation, Naito added.
The 2.0 Program will be overseen by Nickelodeon executives Daniel Wineman and Chris Rose.
News of the new 2.0 Program comes as Nickelodeon gears up to bow “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” the first finalised short and series greenlit from the 2019 inaugural program.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors” will make its worldwide short debut at France’s Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival during a Nickelodeon Animation presentation on Thursday, June 16.
Nickelodeon has shared in exclusivity a two-minute clip with Variety from the short which Nickelodeon describes as “a buddy comedy about the joy and messiness of friendship.”
It serves to introduce the three friends – key in a show whose humor, though often rapid-fire slapstick, is very much character-driven.
Rock, Paper and Scissors are roommates who live in an apartment complex. “It’s time to watch TV!” bawls jubilantly Scissors, decked out in cool sunglasses and with beautifully quiffed hair.
Cut to four seconds of festive joy as the friends dance on the sofa to strobe lights, a confetti storm and frantic music in an example of the show’s peavy humor.
But Scissors wants to watch a highly punitive reality TV, where people get run over by a bulldozer, Rock prefers a body building contest – “My dream is to be model and I never gonna make it if I don’t mimic the moves,” he reasons – and Paper, the most cerebral of the three, prefers Tech Today.
As the three friends grapple for the remote, the large ego-ed Scissors suddenly turns up with a huge shark with immaculate white teeth to get his way. His power play will of course go drastically and comically awry, audiences will anticipate.
“We knew we were onto something special with creators Kyle Stegina and Josh Lehrman and their hilarious characters in Rock, Paper, Scissors, which we are so proud to bring to series,” said Naito.
“Finding and growing talent through the process of pitch to hit is what powers our Intergalactic Shorts Program, and we can’t wait to get started finding the next great creator in animation through our program’s just-launched second phase,” she added.
The original “Rock, Paper, Scissors” short and series are created, written and executive produced by Stegina (“Robot Chicken”) and Josh Lehrman (“Robot Chicken”), with Conrad Vernon (“Sausage Party”) and Bob Boyle (“The Fairly OddParents”) serving as executive producers on the series. “Rock, Paper, Scissors” is slated to debut on Paramount Plus in the U.S. and international markets in 2023.
Creators for the inaugural program have been sourced from the U.S. Those for the 2.0 Program will be sourced around the world, Naito told Variety.
That reflects Nickelodeon’s outreach to global talent under Naito, which was accelerated by the pandemic.
In its drive to hire talent, Nickelodeon launched a virtual recruiting drive during COVID-19 when 9,000 people from across the globe joined a recruiting session. “Going virtual and working off the cloud opened up opportunities for us and for everyone. And it brought us so much closer together in so many ways.”
Pitches for shorts can be made by artists, writers, and directors, Nickeoldeon confirmed Monday. Shorts will run on Nickelodeon’s platforms and are in the process of being developed into long-form animated series.
Shorts should feature “one-of-a-kind, character-driven comedy and surprising storytelling, combining humor with action-adventure, mystery, sci-fi, and more,” Nickelodeon added. “In line with Nickelodeon’s mission to make the best, original humor-driven content for kids, these creator-driven shorts offer content that is appealing to all members of the family, featuring a co-viewing lens of preschool (K 2-5) and big kids (K 6-11),” it announced.
The Program’s eye towards representation is crucial, Naito noted. “Nickelodeon’s core audience are kids between the ages of six and 11. More than 50% are non-white.”
“To serve and connect with that audience, we have to be inclusive. We have to hire inclusively and lead with a high level of inclusivity. Top down our leadership is very diverse and our creators are diverse. It’s because the world is diverse.”
At the Annecy Presentation, Naito will share a new clip of“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” as she beats a drum for an upcoming animated feature release state.
People are excited to get out and go to the movies and they’re looking for family events and we have so many movies coming out,” Naito said citing “Paws of Fury:The Legend of Hank,” set to bow in July,” and three 2023 titles; the Seth Rogan-produced “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, “Paw Patrol 2: The Mighty Movie” and “The Tiger’s Apprentice.”
Apple TV+’s For All Mankind has developed a reputation amongst sci-fi fans and TV critics as one of the best, most beloved shows on streaming. In Season 3, the slow burn series explodes into a full on dramatic supernova. For All Mankind Season 3 takes place in an alternate version of the 1990s where the space race has led NASA, the USSR, and private company Helios into a three-way race to Mars. The only thing more dramatic than the show’s many tense action set pieces is the human story. We’ve followed the core cast for over three decades of friendships, betrayals, marriages, divorces, deaths, and victories. As certain key characters only get closer to their life-long goals, the competition is only going to heat up. For All Mankind is sci-fi storytelling at its finest, marrying imagination with emotion for a helluva a good time.
Jennifer Hudson, one of the celebrity producers of Broadway’s A Strange Loop, achieved EGOT status tonight when that musical took the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Hudson, who won the Academy Award in 2007 for her performance in Dreamgirls, is a double-Grammy winner and won a Daytime Emmy Award for Interactive Achievement as a producer of last year’s Baba Yaga.
Michael R. Jackson’s A Strange Loop won Tony Awards tonight for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical. Among the show’s listed producers are Hudson, RuPaul Charles, Don Cheadle, Mindy Kaling, Billy Porter and Alan Cumming.
Harry Styles checks back into top spot on the U.K. albums chart with Harry’s House (via Columbia), while Post Malone has the week’s highest debut with Twelve Carat Toothache.
As it lifts 2-1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, Styles’ third studio album becomes the first title this year to score a second week at No. 1.
According to the OCC, 21 different LPs have held top spot in 21 weeks so far in 2022.
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The highest number of unique leaders in a calendar year stands at 43, the charts company reports, a record set in 2020.
Styles’ return to the summit comes as the European leg of his Love On Tour shows kicks off at Glasgow’s Ibrox Stadium, and, with “As It Was” completing a 10th week atop the singles survey, he bags another Official U.K. Chart double.
Malone, meanwhile, secures a No. 2 debut with Twelve Carat Toothache (Island). It’s the L.A. singer and rapper’s third U.K. Top 5 release, following 2018’s Beerbongs & Bentleys and 2019’s Hollywood’s Bleeding, both of which led the chart.
Further down the list, Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band earn a first U.K. Top 10 appearance with Dear Scott (Modern Sky), new at No. 6.
Two evergreen albums climb the survey this week, due to concert activity. ABBA’sGold: Greatest Hits (Polydor) lifts 9-7 in its 1,049th week on the chart, following the launch of the pop act’s ABBA Voyage in London, while Queen’sGreatest Hits (Virgin) improves 18-8, after the rockers’ performance at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee concert. Now led by Adam Lambert, Queen is taking its Rhapsody Tour around the country. The band’s 1981 hits collection has just brought up 1,000 weeks on the chart.
Finally, Kate Bush’s extraordinary return to the charts with “Running Up That Hill” (Rhino) is now spilling into the U.K. albums survey.
Powered by its inclusion in season four of Netflix’s Stranger Things, “Running Up That Hill” lifts to No. 2 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart this week, for a new peak position. At the same time, the English singer’s career retrospective The Whole Story explodes 57 places to No. 19 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2022 REVIEW! Simi (Nina Katlein) is a plus-sized, fifteen-year-old girl who no longer wants to feel shame in her own body. Determined to revamp her lifestyle by losing weight, Simi heads to her Aunt Claudia’s house for Easter weekend. Claudia (Pia Hierzegger) happens to be a popular nutritionist whose bestselling health books are the key to Simi’s success. But after several days of trying Claudia’s bizarre methods while dealing with her unpleasant son, Filipp (Alexander Sladek), the nice holiday turns into a disturbing one. Now Simi is left to face her worst nightmares.
In his feature-length debut, Family Dinner, Peter Hengl’s creative pen meets his meticulous camera work in this deliciously twisted slow burn. Building on what could be considered a sensitive topic for any fifteen-year-old, Hengl offers intricacy in a simple story with grade-A terror and discomfort. Recognizing that this works best through his characters, Hengl’s dialogue is piercingly disturbing in all the best ways a horror movie can provide.
Claudia, for example, is the center point of the outcome of every character’s livelihood. Her militant-style regimen may be the only way to fast-track Simi’s weight loss. For Filipp, she’s the key to his health and well-being, too, as his vitriolic outbursts become more prevalent throughout. Every character’s dependence on Claudia’s behaviors and decisions is a fascinating storytelling approach for a concept that isn’t entirely novel. Yet, the filmmaker executes it with delightfully dark nuance.
“Determined to revamp her lifestyle by losing weight, Simi heads to her Aunt Claudia’s…”
These nuances wouldn’t work without the performances of the four leads. Katlein uses restraint to broadcast her character’s reasonable fears and executes that “survivor’s mindset” well. Sladek’s performance is an important one too. Audiences will question what’s real or a manifestation of paranoia. And it’ll be easy to have a different outlook by the end, thanks to the actor’s performance. However, the standout is Hierzegger, whose performance is so convincing it’s scary.
Family Dinner works despite tapping into familiar territory. It explores psychological power dynamics in a way that builds a growing sensation of internal panic. The script emphasizes these subtleties all the way through the climax. It also reveals clues that were there the entire time, too. It’s clever, to say the least, but the subtext is potent, refining itself to blatancy by the end.
Though the film is not without its faults. The feature suffers from technical negatives, specifically, the score, which is a crucial element of horror movies. Peter Kutin’s music does not consistently match the intensity of the script. It doesn’t ruin the film by any means, but it is a missed opportunity. Additionally, some scene transitions were a bit jarring. Again, most did not ruin the quality of the watching experience, but they were noticeable enough to generate brief moments of out-of-film awareness.
When all is said and done, Hengl’s feature-length debut is a surmounting success. Even with minor setbacks, Family Dinner is quality entertainment. His ability to blend subtlety in his atmospheric build is the perfect added touch to an overused concept in recent works. I cannot wait to see what he does next.
ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil — Brazil’s search for an Indigenous expert and a journalist who disappeared in a restive area of the Amazon a week ago advanced with the discovery of a backpack, laptop and other personal belongings of the men submerged in a river.
The items were found Sunday afternoon, and were carried by Federal Police officers by boat to Atalaia do Norte, the closest city to the search. In a statement Sunday night, police said they had identified the items as the belongings of both missing men, including a health card and clothes of Bruno Pereira, the Brazilian Indigenous expert.
The backpack, which was identified as belonging to freelance journalist Dom Phillips of Britain, was found tied to a tree that was half-submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte. It is the end of the rainy season in the region and part of the forest is flooded.
The development came a day after police reported finding traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman who is under arrest as the only suspect in the disappearance. Officers also found organic matter of apparent human origin in the river. The materials are being analyzed.
Search teams that found the laptop and other items Sunday had concentrated their efforts around a spot in the Itaquai river where a tarp from the boat used by the missing men was found Saturday by volunteers from the Matis Indigenous group.
“We used a little canoe to go to the shallow water. Then we found a tarp, shorts and a spoon,” one of the volunteers, Binin Beshu Matis, told The Associated Press.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen June 5 near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. They were returning alone by boat on the Itaquai to Atalaia do Norte but never arrived.
That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents. Violence has grown as drug trafficking gangs battle for control of waterways to ship cocaine, although the Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route.
Authorities have said a main line of the police investigation into the disappearance has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory.
One of the most valuable targets is the world’s largest freshwater fish with scales, the arapaima. It weighs up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet). The fish is sold in nearby cities, including Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who is under arrest. According to accounts by Indigenous people who were with Pereira and Phillips, he brandished a rifle at them the day before the pair disappeared.
The suspect denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told The Associated Press..
Pereira, who previously led the local bureau of the Brazilian government’s Indigenous agency, known as FUNAI, has taken part in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, as a rule the fishing gear is seized or destroyed, while the fishermen are fined and briefly detained. Only the Indigenous can legally fish in their territories.
“The crime’s motive is some personal feud over fishing inspection,” the mayor of Atalaia do Norte, Denis Paiva, speculated to reporters without providing more details.
AP had access to information police shared with Indigenous leadership. But while some police, the mayor and others in the region link the pair’s disappearances to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled rule out other lines of investigation, such as narco trafficking.
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopes, who lives on the banks of Itaquai, told AP that he gave up fishing inside the Indigenous territory after being detained three times. He said he endured beating and starvation in jail.
Lopes, who has five children, said he only fishes near his home to feed his family, not sell.
“I made many mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see your child dying of hunger you go get it where you have to. So I would go there to steal fish to be able to support my family. But then I said: I’m going to put an end to this, I’m going to plant,” he said during an interview on his boat.
Lopes said he was taken to local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, charging he was beaten and left without food.
In 2019, Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was gunned down in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told AP they believe the slaying was linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
Rubber tappers founded all the riverbank communities in the area. In the 1980s, however, rubber tapping declined and they resorted to logging. That ended, too, when the federal government created the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in 2001. Fishing has become the main economic activity since then.
An illegal fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley lasts around one month, said Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a councilman. For each illegal incursion, a fisherman can earn at least $3,000.
“The fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “In Leticia, everybody was angry with Bruno. This is not a little game. It’s possible they sent a gunman to kill him.”
Taking a look back. Lea Michele may be best known for her role as Rachel Berry in Glee, but the actress’ life in the spotlight started long before that, as she made her debut on Broadway at the age of 8, playing a replacement Young Cosette in Les Misérables. Three years later, she played Little Girl in Ragtime.
Although she stepped away from the stage in 2009 when Ryan Murphy wrote the role of Rachel Berry for her specifically, her love for Broadway was written into the character. Following the show, the iconic writer and director included Michele in many of his projects. In fact, when Glee ended in 2015, she signed on as the lead of his next series, Scream Queens.
The horror comedy, in which she starred alongside original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, didn’t include singing and the character was nothing like Rachel Berry. Instead, she wore a neck brace and desperately tried to fit in with the It-Girls in school.
“Honestly, having been offered this role, I knew nothing. But I did trust Ryan implicitly that he would create something for me that would be the most incredible opportunity to show people a different side and a different color,” the actress told Entertainment Weekly in 2015. “And the first and only thing he said to me about the project was, ‘neck brace.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I guess no better way to show people something completely different from Rachel Berry than a neck brace.’ The thing that I’m most grateful for with this character is the opportunity to show people a completely different side.”
In addition to acting, Michele also has released three albums with three very different sounds. Her first, Louder, came out in 2014. She worked on it following the death of her boyfriend, Cory Montieth, who died of an accidental overdose the year before.
“Listening to it, it’s therapeutic and difficult,” she told Billboard about the song “If You Say So,” which she wrote about Monteith. “It will always represent the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole life. But at the same time, music is therapy. It’s been therapy for me in the entire grieving process and in my entire life. I’m grateful that Sia collaborated on that song with me and it’s a moment in my life … music has just been so important and so helpful to me this whole year.”
Scroll through the gallery below for more on Michele’s life:
Half-Life: Alyx Leviathan, an upcoming fan-made mod for Valve’s acclaimed VR FPS, has received its first full gameplay reveal – giving us a glimpse at its ambitious scope and gunplay.
Revealed as part of the PC Gaming Show (opens in new tab) after the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, the 7-minute gameplay clip follows Alyx as she explores what looks to be an abandoned skyscraper and mining facility. Of course, she’s not alone, with plenty of Combine soldiers and headcrab zombies lunging at her.
Pitched as an expansion to Half-Life: Alyx rather than a total overhaul, Levitation will include all the staples of the original game – which we reckon is one of the best VR games around. You’ll be unloading magazines against Combine in cover-based shootouts, evading the pincers of jumping headcrabs in more horror-focused level segments, and playing around with the physics of your environment to get an edge in firefights.
It all looks rather slick, mixing intricately planned open combat areas with moments of suspenseful downtime. Production value alone sets Levitation apart from other mods, with its verticality and scope looking right at home alongside Valve’s original. See for yourself in the gameplay trailer below.
Levitation’s announcement trailer (opens in new tab) suggested Russell will be returning, and G-Man can be spotted in this latest gameplay reveal silently surveilling your actions. According to that first trailer, Levitation will send you on a hunt for two resistance fighters who went missing after investigating a mysterious floating building in Sector-X of City 17.
Half-Life: Alyx Levitation is being developed by animator Corey Laddo and level designer Shawn Snelling, who’s previously contributed to several Counter-Strike: Global Offensive maps. The game will be four to five hours long and is expected to release in the third quarter of 2023 – July, August, September – for free on Steam Workshop.
Levitation has already caused a stir within the Half-Life community, with many hoping it will be as impressive as Black Mesa – a third-party remake of the original Half-Life. That game eventually received Valve’s blessing and was released commercially to much fanfare in 2020. Levitation’s creators will likely be hoping to achieve similar success.
Samuel L. Jackson and Viola Davis are both veterans of the New York theater scene, and embrace the opportunity to dig into their shared experiences before addressing their latest work on TV. On Apple TV+, Jackson takes the lead role in “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” an adaptation of Walter Mosley’s novel about an elder struggling with dementia. And on Showtime, Davis plays Michelle Obama in the dramatic anthology “The First Lady.” Watch the full conversation above from Variety’s “Actors on Actors,” presented by Apple TV+.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: How do you feel about rolling around town, seeing yourself on these big old billboards? How is that?
VIOLA DAVIS: I don’t see that as myself. I see it as something else. Michelle Obama, the other Viola Davis. I don’t marry the two because otherwise it’s too difficult.
JACKSON: What was the first time you saw yourself up on a big old billboard and it was OK to see yourself?
DAVIS: It was OK to see myself when I was doing the play. Because it’s different when you’re doing the play. That was exciting, to see yourself outside the theater.
JACKSON: When were you at Juilliard?
DAVIS: I was at Juilliard from ’89 to ’93.
JACKSON: I was just about to leave New York at that time. I think “Jungle Fever” got me out of New York. The first time I remember seeing you, you were playing this meanass cop on “Law & Order.”
DAVIS: I loved that role. I played a serial killer. No one else in my family liked that role. But I loved it.
JACKSON: We all passed through a “Law & Order” phase because back when I was doing my stuff, that was one of two shows that was shot in New York. Only “Law & Order” and “The Cosby Show.”
DAVIS: When you were doing all of the plays — Henry Street, Negro Ensemble — what years were those in?
JACKSON: We moved to New York Halloween night 1976. We drove from Atlanta to New York, pulled into that Halloween parade down in the Village. LaTanya [Richardson Jackson] and I both did our first play in New York at Henry Street.
DAVIS: When I got my first play at the Public Theater making $250 a week, I was like, “It’s a wrap — I’ve made it.” I always went from job to job. I never thought “I want to be famous.” The notoriety was just an overflow of the work. Now you have so many actors who are so intentional about where they want to end up.
JACKSON: People showed up to be famous.
DAVIS: I don’t really have any criticism of that. I don’t want to be vicious.
JACKSON: It’s not a criticism.
DAVIS: It’s not. It’s an observation.
JACKSON: And as you do the work, if you become a real actor, all that stuff becomes … the back of your mind.
DAVIS: Exactly.
JACKSON: We weren’t auditioning for stuff like that in New York anyway. I was in New York, and every now and then a movie passed through. I remember when I got “Ragtime” in 1980. That was my first time going to London to shoot and be on location. I thought, “It’s about to happen.” I came back to New York. I didn’t see another movie for 10 years. I lost it and I started focusing on the work, especially after I got sober. The work became the thing.
DAVIS: People ask me all the time, “Viola, was it hard?” I say that in hindsight : I took the hard because I thought it was just part of the business. I just said, “This is something that I have to deal with.” I wasn’t getting those roles. People always feel they mistake the opportunity for the talent.
JACKSON: Yeah.
DAVIS: They’re always like, “Viola, you just don’t play the romantic leads.” I said, “Listen, I would play the romantic lead if I got the romantic lead.” But I didn’t, so I made do with what I got.
JACKSON: LaTanya would say, “Why are you taking that piddling-ass job?” It’s like, “Well, it’s two days on a movie, and that person’s going to be a big director one day,” and sometimes that works out.
DAVIS: I’m always interested in actors who are not humble because for me it’s a very humbling profession. You actually don’t even know if you’re going to fail or you’re going to succeed.
JACKSON: How does that help you or bring yourself into becoming Michelle Obama — what you had to do to portray somebody who’s alive and will watch you?
DAVIS: Besides taking a good shot of vodka … Here’s the thing. It is very difficult playing a real-life person, especially someone who’s occupied the White House. There is a shroud of protection of liability, and as an actor, that is a nightmare. When you enter into any character, you have to be armed with as much information as possible. Not just where did you go to school, what do you drink? Do you love your husband? Do you fight with your husband? Do you fight with your kids? You have to fill it in for an audience who don’t want to see anything mar the image. And that’s exactly antithetical towards what we do. We need the mess. That’s what makes us human. I think the one thing you really have to be armed with, as an actor, is courage. When you play a character and you don’t see all the gaps being filled in, you have to fill it in with what you’ve seen in the past from other people — what I know being a Black woman — with Michelle Obama, and you have to be bold enough to go for it.
JACKSON: How do you keep out your preconceptions? Because everybody’s got a different idea of who Michelle is and who they wanted her to be.
DAVIS: You’re limited by the scope and the depth of the script. Always a pet peeve of mine, number one. Limited by the script. If it’s not there, you have to fill it in, and sometimes that’s almost impossible. Two, it’s not my job to give you an image of someone you want to see. I need the writer, I need the director, and then, finally, I need the audience. It’s my job to make you feel those moments that you have in private. They may make you squirm, but if you recognize it, then I’ve done my job. When you were doing “Ptolemy Grey,” I’m sure that that was your process.
JACKSON: I’ve been living with that book for 12 years or so. I read it once a year because I kept trying to get folks to do it. By the time I had an opportunity to actually portray him, I had a very solid idea of who he was. I had that freedom to just go in there and make Ptolemy who I wanted Ptolemy to be. I knew how uncomfortable the first episode would be. But I wasn’t going to run from it and try to make it easy. I’ve played characters that I know people aren’t supposed to like, and enjoyed it, like Stephen in “Django [Unchained].” That’s my job, to make you uncomfortable. People go, “My God.” And that’s satisfying for us.
DAVIS: Yes. Very.
JACKSON: I was never always comfortable watching you as Annalise, but there it is. When you’re doing a series like “How to Get Away With Murder,” did you know, the first season, where you were going to go to the end?
DAVIS: No. It’s a huge challenge. My big thing is you’re not always going to be put in a perfect situation as an actor. You’re going to get on set, and all of a sudden, you’re given a scene, it’s like, “That scene changes everything. She’s killing another person? Why?” Then you have to make sense out of it. For me, with Annalise, I was given an opportunity, especially as a dark-skinned Black woman, 47 years old. She’s sexualized; she’s sociopathic. It gave me a vessel to be an unpredictable, messy woman. And I find that when, for instance, if you see a white woman on-screen, you could say, “She looks like my mother.” A lot of studio heads would say, “She could look like my sister, my aunt, the woman who I wanted to marry.” You see the possibilities. That wasn’t me in my career. My possibilities were the crack addicts, the mothers who were in challenged situations watching their sons die, the ambiguous lawyer or the judge. And I was happy to get them — don’t get me wrong. I made the most of it. But this was the first opportunity I had to play a woman. And it was in the midst of a melodrama. We can admit a lot of the situations were fantastical, but it was still my opportunity to boldly step out and make choices that could surprise people and make people really see me as a woman.
This weekend I have … an hour, and I want a crime drama.
‘Dark Winds’ When to watch: Sunday at 9 p.m., on AMC, or on AMC+.
If the hiatus in the final season of “Better Call Saul” has left an “ominous lonesome desert footage”-shaped hole in your heart, try this six-part mini-series set in and around the Navajo Nation. The show, based on the Leaphorn and Chee books by Tony Hillerman, is set in 1971 and follows tribal police officers investigating a series of perhaps unrelated crimes. While the plotting can get a little baggy, brilliant performances (especially from Zahn McClarnon, as Joe Leaphorn) and striking cinematography make up for it, and the show’s sensibilities around mourning, community and spirituality elevate it beyond other sad-man cop shows. If your soul is at peace whenever Noah Emmerich plays an F.B.I. agent, watch this.
… an hour, and I want something spooky.
‘Evil’ When to watch: Sunday, on Paramount+.
Season 3 of this well-done churchy horror procedural picks up right where Season 2 left off, with David (Mike Colter) and Kristen (Katja Herbers) seeking absolution … with a side of potent sexual tension. Characters on “Evil” are in a constant do-si-do of advance and retreat, encroachment and rapprochement, crossing the line and then scuttling backward and swearing to never commit that sin again. The show takes its scary parts seriously, but it also takes its funny parts seriously — characters make jokes and experience the ordinary humor of life while also understanding a demonic realm, and whatnot. If you ever thought you and Dana Scully would be friends, go back and start with Season 1 of “Evil” and have yourself a fun little summer TV project.
The sixth and final season of “Peaky Blinders” is finally here, nearly three years after Season 5 and nine years after the show premiered. Through its run, “Peaky” has become a little less focused, as Tommy (Cillian Murphy) develops appetites for new vices, and this long after its debut, the show feels like part of an older, fleeting TV era of violent bleakness and damp British criminals. It remains ominous and tragic, though, its haunted beauty intact, with air so thick that cigarette smoke doesn’t rise, fog so heavy that the horses seem to exhale extra hard. There are only six new episodes, so binge gently.
Other times, you wait for so long to find out who a character is, or who’s behind something…and it’s just super, super disappointing. Here are 17 character reveals that I honestly wish they’d go back and redo!
To no one’s surprise, but nearly everyone’s relief, Netflix’s global hit Squid Gamewill be returning for another season. We’ve known this for a while. Details have been scant about Young-hee’s whereabouts, but today Netflix was nice enough to power up the creepy doll and tease the next season by doing the barest of minimums. The streamer dropped what amounts to a visual poster promoting the new season. Still, something is better than nothing.
Ok, not much there there. However, in the spirit of getting ready for a new round of those whacky Squid Games, director Hwang Dong-hyuk released a statement:
It took 12 years to bring the first season of Squid Game to life last year. But it took 12 days for Squid Game to become the most popular Netflix series ever.
As the writer, director, and producer of ‘Squid Game,’ a huge shout out to fans around the world. Thank you for watching and loving our show.
And now, Gi-hun returns.
The Front Man returns.
Season 2 is coming.
The man in the suit with ddakji might be back.
You’ll also be introduced to Young-hee’s boyfriend, Cheol-su.
Nevertheless, Netflix’s brain trust didn’t need to create a whole algorithm to decide on a second season. More than viewers spent more than 1.54 billion hours streaming Squid Game in the first 28 days. We’re told that’s a lot by Netflix, which reported the numbers, so yeah. It’s at least enough to make the Korean show the most successful show ever on Netflix. The second biggest? You guessed it, Real Rob.
The director Kogonada’s vision of the future looks suspiciously like present-day Sedona, Ariz., the capital of woo-woo vibes: People wear loosefitting linen, always use their inside voices and appear preternaturally mellow. The mild mood even carries over to their jobs; Jake (Colin Farrell) runs a tea shop bathed in mood lighting.
To complete their happy family, he and his wife, Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), bought the “technosapien” android Yang (Justin H. Min) as an ethnically compatible sibling for their adopted Chinese daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Unfortunately, one day Yang shuts down after a highly aerobic dance routine. Getting him fixed proves to be a trial because Jake, trying to save money, had bought a sketchy refurbished model.
At first “After Yang” feels like an unintended parody of the excesses of super-progressive parenting. But the film comes into its own when Jake gets access to Yang’s memory bank and is mesmerized by what he finds. It’s not just that the android had memories to begin with, but he was able to form emotions — an essential step to sentience. “After Yang” delicately explores what it means to have a conscience, or perhaps a soul, and also suggests degrees of acceptability when it comes to technology: Jake treats a robot as a member of his family, but looks down on neighbors with cloned children. Kogonada never deviates from a silky-smooth tone, but there are bristles underneath.
How could something that looks so innocuous — it’s a nice pastel color and just slowly drifts about — be so lethal? But it only takes 10 seconds of exposure to die from the pink cloud that has suddenly materialized around the world. So the authorities order people to shelter in place, wherever they happen to be. For Yago (Eduardo Mendonça), this means the apartment of Giovana (Renata de Lélis). When they had sex together for the first time, the night before the cloud’s arrival, they did not realize they would be stuck together for the next few days. Which turn into months. Which turn into years.
Lest they be tempted to dismiss the Brazilian director Iuli Gerbase’s film as jumping on the Covid-19 bandwagon, viewers are informed at the beginning that “The Pink Cloud” was written in 2017 and shot in 2019. Any resemblance to a pandemic involving extended periods of lockdown is purely coincidental.
The fablelike movie describes a life spent indoors, with a droll, semidetached tone that makes it easy to overlook the plot holes. Instead we focus on the vagaries of Yago and Giovana’s grudging cohabitation, like “Scenes From a Forced Marriage.” With no end to the confinement in sight, the characters handle their de facto incarceration in two very different ways — and each feels entirely understandable.
Stefon Bristol’s debut feature makes up for a limited budget with outsize smarts and heart. (People noticed: The director is working on a thriller starring Jennifer Hudson, Milla Jovovich and Quvenzhané Wallis.)
Best friends C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Dante Crichlow) are happy teenage nerds who attend the Bronx High School of Science and apply their tech skills to odd jobs around their East Flatbush neighborhood, like refurbishing neighbors’ laptops. Their big project, however, is a time-travel device. When C.J. and Sebastian finally succeed in turning back the clock by one day, they become embroiled in a case of police brutality that they desperately try to prevent in successive return trips. This only creates ripples of consequences that the overwhelmed kids — who had been warned by a teacher, Michael J. Fox in a sweet cameo — can’t control. You can read the ambiguous ending as a suggestion that the cycle of violence may feed on itself eternally, or opt for a more optimistic interpretation.
The influence of Bristol’s mentor, Spike Lee (who serves as the producer) is evident throughout, especially in the neighborhood scenes, which have a naturalistic verve, and in Bristol’s confident, efficient directing.
The 18th-century fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” has inspired many adaptations, with this Japanese film counting among the finest — and certainly among the most emotional. Which is not all that surprising since it’s by Mamoru Hosoda (“Wolf Children” and the Academy Award-nominated “Mirai”), one of anime’s greatest directors. The story revolves around Suzu, a high school student struggling to overcome the grief caused by her mother’s accidental death. Suzu finds an escape in the virtual world of U, where she becomes the wildly popular singer Belle. Eventually she meets the Beast, a huge demonlike figure hunted by Justin (essentially the Gaston character). Hosoda skillfully alternates between Suzu’s naturalistic home life and the fantastical, beautifully designed U. But where “Belle” truly shines is in the way it shows how kids deal with death and violence. Those topics are delicately suggested and depicted as a part of everyday life we must learn to navigate. After Suzu and her friends spend a good amount of time trying to figure out who hides behind the Beast avatar, the reveal is emotionally devastating in a way that feels entirely earned, as is the film’s epilogue.
Hope you don’t mind watching people munch on fried chicken, because it happens a lot in Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s whimsical indie film. A fried-chicken shake is even on offer, because we are in 2035 and the world has gone mad.
Actually, you could easily picture a fast-food chain selling such a novelty delicacy right now, whereas the movie’s real subject — that dreams have become taxable — is a little more remote a possibility. Or is it? The commodification of imagination is not new, after all, so the movie feels like it is only a few steps ahead of us.
James (Audley) is an auditor checking in with Arabella Isadora (the delightful Penny Fuller), an older lady who has not paid her dues in quite a while. At least she had the sense to record her dreams on antique VHS tapes, which James sets out to watch. The filmmakers evoke the gently mischievous psychedelia of the 1960s and ’70s (with a good assist from Dan Deacon’s score), and even when “Strawberry Mansion” gets confusing, it’s hard not to keep going, if only to see what nutty details are in store. Look for the terrific character actor Reed Birney (Albert’s uncle), giving the movie a jolt as Arabella’s awful son.
Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.
To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit THE EMMYS COLLECTIVE Visit each category, per the individual awards show from THE EMMYS HUB To see old predictions and commentary, click the EMMY PREDICTIONS ARCHIVES For film awards predictions go toTHE OSCARS HUB
UPDATED: June 12, 2022
2022 EMMYS PREDICTIONS: OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
AWARDS PREDICTION COMMENTARY:
The double brilliance of the two Martins is highlighted in the lead actor comedy race that looks to be building toward a five-nominee lineup once again.
A comedic legend, Steve Martin has only been embraced once for his writing (“The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1969) by the TV Academy. Alongside his co-starring icon Martin Short, they make hilarious magic in “Only Murders in the Building” from Hulu, which will likely be one of the most nominated comedy series on nomination morning.
Short is better than ever in the Hulu murder mystery, and as one of our favorite Canadians, he’s received praise for his turn as the lovable Oliver Putnam. He is anchoring the show in many ways, bringing some of the brightest moments to the kickoff season. With two Emmys on his shelf as a producer (outstanding variety special for “A Tribute to Mel Brooks”) and writing (“SCTV Network 90” in 1983), an eventual acting win may not be far off.
If Hollywood had a prom, one of the most likable guys in the game, Bill Hader, would be in the running to be the king of the party, with love across all mediums for writing, directing, producing and starring in multiple ventures. However, with the return of HBO’s “Barry,” for which he won this category for the first two seasons, he can easily repeat for his commitment to a character that audiences adore.
Courtesy of Apple TV Plus
Former “Saturday Night Live” star Jason Sudeikis is the reigning champ after picking up his first Emmy statuette as the beloved title character “Ted Lasso.” With the second season receiving glowing reviews and his work as the lovable eponymous coach, he could go back-to-back as he’s done with the SAG and Critics Choice Awards.
Larry David, the two-time Emmy-winning producer and writer of the classic “Seinfeld” series, has been nominated multiple times as himself in the long-running “Curb Your Enthusiasm” from HBO. Even with many hiatuses over the last 20 years, the TV Academy always welcomes him back for one more dance. So it’s hard to rule out another invite this late in the game.
England-born Kayvan Novak has been a fan-favorite as Nandor the Relentless in the FX hilarious series, surprising many with an Emmy nom in 2020. With Hollywood focusing on more diversity and representation, especially from our AAPI brothers and sisters, the Persian star may have a pocket of support that could land him in a competitive field.
Eleven Emmy nominations are pretty impressive for any actor, but Don Cheadle’s run has been effortless between limited series, comedies and even guest roles in superhero shows. His Mo Monroe from Showtime’s “Black Monday” has already been recognized twice, and the series’ return could make him a default selection on ballots.
The wait was long, but FX’s “Atlanta” is back for its third and final season, with Donald Glover again taking charge as Earnest ‘Earn’ Marks. Glover took home two Emmys for the first season for acting and directing, and his farewell run could give him one more chomp at the Emmy bit, but has the wait been too long for the dramedy?
Anthony Anderson is a bonafide ballot staple, with seven consecutive nominations since 2015 in this category. (He also has four other noms for his role as executive producer on the ABC family sitcom). So in its farewell season and currently tied as the most nominated Black actor ever in lead actor comedy, he could be a safe bet for recognition.
The wonderful Sam Richardson has already proved his worth with guest spots on shows like “Ted Lasso” and “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.” As the Aniq, Richardson is finally given a leading role and one that could be a “throwaway” in the wrong hands. A critical piece of a sprawling ensemble, his work on the Phil Lord and Chris Miller-produced mystery series could make a dynamic presence on nomination morning.
The Primetime Emmy Awards, better known simply as the Emmys, is television’s most prestigious artistic award. Many records have been held for wins and nominations in the near eight decades.
For wins: Four actors have won the most prizes in this category, with four in all of Emmy history – Michael J. Fox, Kelsey Grammer, Carroll O’Connor and Jim Parsons. Fox and O’Connor have won three consecutive years. Except for Fox, Grammer (“Frasier”), O’Connor (“All in the Family”) and Parsons (“The Big Bang Theory”) won for the same television series. Fox won three for “Family Ties” and the other for “Spin City.” Four men have three times – Don Adams, John Lithgow, Tony Shalhoub and Dick Van Dyke.
For nominations: Ted Danson has the most nominations ever in this category with 14 (winning twice for “Cheers”). Alan Alda and Kelsey Grammer are next in line with 11, while Michael J. Fox, Carroll O’Connor and Tony Shalhoub have eight each.
John Goodman, Matt LeBlanc and Hal Linden have the most nominations without ever winning for lead actor in a comedy series. Goodman (“Roseanne”) and Linden (“Barney Miller”) were all nominated for the same series. LeBlanc’s nods are split between “Friends” (3) and “Episodes” (4).
“Cheers” and “M*A*S*H” are the leading series with nominations in this category, with 11 with “Frasier” and “The Odd Couple” (1970-1975) nabbing 10. NBC has won this category the most for any network with 26, while CBS and ABC have 19 and 11 wins. Amazon Prime Video is the first and only streaming platform to win this category for Jeffrey Tambor (“Transparent”) in two consecutive years.
The Primetime Emmy Awards, better known as the Emmys, are given out by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). Since 1949, the awards have recognized excellence in American primetime television programming. They are divided into three classes – Primetime Emmy Awards, the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards (honors artisan achievements), and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards (recognizes significant engineering and technological contributions). The typical eligibility period is between June 1 and May 31 of any given year. The Television Academy comprises over 25,000 members, representing 30 professional peer groups, including performers, directors, producers, art directors and various artisans and executives.
The 74th Emmy Awards will take place on Monday, Sept. 12, and air on NBC.
Robert and Kenny begin the show answering questions from Score: The Mailbox about why album versions of scores sometimes differ from the film version, the use of diegetic music in film and if there is a common starting point for writing a score.
Then, Emmy-nominated composer Max Richter joins to discuss his brilliant artist career, including his new album ‘Voices,’ why director Ari Folman called out of the blue demanding he score Waltz with Bashir, his use of laments in Taboo, why he write “Sleep” even though he can’t sleep with music playing, and the reason he took real space travel data and converted it into music for Ad Astra.
This episode is presented by Spitfire Audio
Follow us on Twitter @ScoreThePodcast, or send Kenny and Robert your questions for the mailbox at ScoreTheMailbox@epicleff.com
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Since 2017, the Riders are 29-0 in regular-season CFL games when leading after three quarters. They led 12-6 heading into the fourth quarter and increased the lead to 15-6 three minutes into the stanza on Brett Lauther’s fifth field goal of the season opener for both teams.
Hamilton made things interesting on their next possession when Dane Evans connected with Steven Dunbar on a 71-yard touchdown pass to narrow the gap to 15-13. But the Riders responded with a pair of touchdowns as Cody Farjardo hit Kian Shaffer-Baker on a 20-yard scoring play and then followed up with a one-yard touchdown run on the next possession.
Fajardo, who finished the game 22 of 32 passing for 311 yards and one touchdown, was thrilled that the Riders’ offence found an extra gear in the fourth quarter.
“The first half wasn’t how we wanted to start, but to tell you the truth that one felt good because, if you look at our team last year, we always started fast and then slowed up toward the second half. It felt good tonight to finish,” said Fajardo.
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“That was one of our big talks offensively and `finished’ was the word of the year for us. To have that come back full circle for our first game, it really shows the guys that it means a lot.”
Riders’ head coach Craig Dickenson agreed with Fajardo’s assessment.
“The first half wasn’t as good as you’d like, but boy that fourth quarter was something else,” said Dickenson.
After Dunbar’s touchdown, the Riders responded with their best drive of the game, going 85 yards on seven plays. They completed the drive with Shaffer-Baker’s touchdown but the biggest play on the drive was a third-and-one gamble at midfield with five minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Riders, who had turned the ball over on downs twice previously, kept the drive alive on a two-yard run by Jamal Morrow.
On Hamilton’s first offensive play following the Riders touchdown, Evans was intercepted by Derrick Moncrief who returned the ball 39 yards to the Hamilton one-yard-line. Fajardo scored on a quarterback sneak on the next play and then hit Duke Williams on a two-point convert attempt to increase the lead to 30-13.
While the Saskatchewan offence took some time to find its way, the defence hit the ground running with eight sacks and two interceptions. Pete Robertson had two sacks for the Riders with Charleston Hughes, AC Leonard, Charbel Dabire, Mike Edem, Larry Dean and Rolan Milligan also recording sacks. Moncrief and Nick Marshall had interceptions for the Riders.
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Robertson wasn’t surprised by having nine different players involved in the 10 take-aways.
“It goes to show that everybody came to play,” said Robertson, who also recovered a fumble. “It speaks to our depth. The linebackers were outstanding and the defensive backs allowed us time to rush the passer because of their coverage. They helped us get to the quarterback for sure.”
Dean was playing his first game in two years after the 2020 CFL season was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic and an Achilles injury suffered before training camp ended his 2021 season.
He was asked if Friday’s effort can be improved.
“Yes, sir,” Dean said. “We didn’t play a perfect game.”
Lauther was a perfect five-for-five in field goal attempts, hitting from 13, 48, 30, 39 and 41 yards.
“He was incredible. Ever since I got here in 2019, he’s a guy we can count on,” said Fajardo. “I know once we cross the centre field line you don’t want to make a mistake because we can make three points when you have a great kicker like Brett.”
Both offences struggled in the first half. The Tiger-Cats had four first downs and 96 total net yards while the Riders had three first downs and 94 total net yards.
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Papi White had the biggest gain of the half for the Tiger-Cats, hauling in a 26-yard reception from Evans in the second quarter.
Saskatchewan’s longest gain of the half came when Morrow took a shovel pass from Fajardo and scampered 30 yards down the sideline.
Two minutes in the second quarter Hamilton linebacker Simoni Lawrence drilled Fajardo, who was being taken to the turf by Malik Carney. Lawrence hit Fajardo in the upper back and head area and was penalized for rough play. Although Fajardo appeared to be injured on the play, he remained in the game.
When asked about the hit, Fajardo replied with a quick answer.
“No comment. I mean, it’s been like that the entire time I’ve been in this league,” said Fajardo.
Shaq Evans finished as Saskatchewan’s top receiver with four catches for 92 yards while Williams hauled in five passes for 58 yards.
Evans completed 18 of 22 passes for 222 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Dunbar had two receptions for 75 yards and one touchdown while Bralon Addison caught eight passes for 72 yards.
Domagala was good on two of three field goal attempts, hitting from 52 and 25 yards while missing from 46 yards when his kick hit the left upright.
Hulu’s killer comedy series “Only Murders in the Building,” is only going to get zanier in Season 2, according to showrunner, co-creator, writer and executive producer John Hoffman, who teased what’s next in store for the Arconia trio during Saturday’s FYC Fest at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.
“If you like Season 1, I will guarantee a real amazing, elevated corker the whole way through — it’s quite something,” he told the crowd during a panel conversation, adding in half-jest, “I just think what you felt in Season 1 was these three people coming together in very unexpected ways, and now there’s a groove they’ve found that matches with what we saw on set happening, this familial thing that happens — even though some wanted to murder others.”
Hoffman was joined by stars and executive producers Selena Gomez and Martin Short, as well as cast members who appeared virtually: Amy Ryan (Jan), Nathan Lane (Teddy) and James Caverly (Theo). Steve Martin was absent at the conversation, which was moderated by the Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg. Short hilariously took advantage of Martin’s absence, throwing digs at him and drawing uproarious laughs from the audience — and panelists — in the process.
Attendees were treated to screenings of Season 1 episodes “The Boy in 6B,” told mostly through Theo’s perspective, and the finale “Open and Shut.” Referencing his episode, Caverly signed that he was initially “terrified” about having to “carry this story” entirely. However, after surmounting that fear, he added that it was an “honor” to do so, thanking Hoffman, Gomez, Short and “that other guy” for giving him the creative leeway as a performer.
“It was really shocking to me that after the show was over and even until this day, people come up to me and say that this is one of the best episodes of not just this entire season, but all of the television shows they’ve seen on Hulu,” Caverly signed.
Season 1 ends on the stunning cliffhanger of Bunny’s (Jayne Houdyshell) murder via knitting needle, with the police arriving to collect Mabel (Gomez), Charles (Martin) and Oliver (Short). Hoffman said that the twist was envisioned from the very beginning of the pitch process, and these “newbie investigators are now finding themselves suspects in a new murder and the subjects of a podcast done by their heroine [played by Tina Fey].” However, as for solving the case in Season 1, the answer actually came much later in the writing and filming process.
Season 2, which stars new cast members Shirley MacLaine, Amy Schumer and Cara Delevingne, will premiere on Hulu June 28.
“It didn’t seem possible that this could have been the plan, that things hadn’t just gone terribly wrong,” Polley wrote. “But they hadn’t. This was the plan.”
Sarah Polley has built an admirable career as an actress, director, and Oscar-nominated screenwriter, but her show business career began in earnest when, at the age of eight, she was cast in Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” But despite the opportunities that the film created for her, and the movie’s cult classic status, the actress is still haunted by the film’s harrowing shoot.
In her new book, “Run Towards the Danger,” Polley accuses Gilliam of creating an unsafe environment on set, particularly for a child. In an excerpt published in The Guardian, she goes into detail about the highs and lows of the experience.
Polley writes that she was ecstatic to have the opportunity to work with a legend like Gilliam, and was initially enamored with him upon meeting him. But once they began working on the film, Gilliam’s flaws began to emerge.
“As we went into production, things quickly began to fall apart,” Polley wrote. “Terry was erratic, a dreamer, someone who didn’t live in the world of ‘logic and reason’ – just as the Baron himself didn’t. I would overhear the crew complain that plans, months in the making, would suddenly be replaced at the last minute with wild, ambitious impulses that put enormous pressure on the crew, the budget and the schedule.”
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But those inconveniences were nothing compared to what would happen next. Polley believes that Gilliam staged certain scenes with little regard for her safety, often placing her in danger on set.
“As we were about to shoot a sequence involving explosives, Terry led me down a route I was to run through – the set of a bombed-out city,” she wrote. “I was told there would be explosives going off as I ran, but I wasn’t concerned. It would all be perfectly safe, I was told. I was given two cotton balls to put into my ears in case the sound was too loud for me. After Terry yelled ‘Action!’ I began my run as instructed.”
“Blasts of debris exploded on the ground around me, accompanied by deafening booms that made me feel as if I myself had exploded,” she wrote. “A log I was to run under was partially on fire. The gigantic blasts continued and shook everything around me. I ran, terrified, straight into the camera, tripping over the dolly tracks.”
Things go wrong on film sets all the time, but Polley said the most upsetting part of the experience was realizing Gilliam had planned for the take to go exactly the way it did.
“It didn’t seem possible that this could have been the plan, that things hadn’t just gone terribly wrong,” she wrote. “But they hadn’t. This was the plan. And I had just ruined the take. I was mortified. It took a long time to reset the take and while Terry didn’t show any frustration about the delay, he also didn’t seem to notice how scared I was.”
Years later, when Polley confronted Gilliam about the experience of working on the film, the director apologized for scaring her but denied she was ever in real danger. But as time went on, both her co-star Eric Idle and Richard Conway, who created the film’s special effects, publicly agreed with Polley’s assessment of the experience.
Polley wrote that as she gets older, she blames Gilliam more and more for what she experienced on his set, though she still acknowledges his creative talent. She now tries to balance the two truths to shape her view of the “Monty Python” star.
“Though he was magical and brilliant and made images and stories that will live for a long, long time,” she wrote. “It’s hard to calculate whether they were worth the price of the hell that so many went through over the years to help him make them.”
On June 17, filmmaker A.J. Edwards debuts his third feature, a coming-of-age drama titled First Love. But while audiences will see his vision on the big screen, they won’t hear it.
After turning in a cut of the film, he was informed by Voltage Pictures that the score, by Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, would be replaced with one by composer George Kallis, of the After franchise.
“My hope is simply that the true form of this film does have a future and does have an audience, and, at the very least, I want people to know about it. [Parry] did beautiful work, and it melds the performances and the heart of the film in the way it was intended.” Voltage declined to comment.
First Love, directed by A.J. Edwards, stars Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Sydney Park.
Courtesy of Voltage Pictures
This story first appeared in the June 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Bhramam Director: Ravi K. Chandran Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Unni Mukundan, Mamta Mohandas, Raashi Khanna, Shankar Panicker
If film remakes come too early, they crash. The 2018 Andhadhun, headlined by Ayushmann Khurrana, and written/helmed by Sriram Raghavan, was interesting. The plot about a blind pianist and how he walks into a murder and illegal organ trade had something to say, and the climax was a huge hit – though some may have missed it. A few weeks ago, we had Maestro in Telugu (reviewed in these columns), helmed by Merlapaka Gandhi with Nithiin essaying the protagonist, which was a copy of Raghavan’s movie. Maestro did not work for me, as it may not have for those who had watched Andhadhun. Many might have done so, given the fact that movies on OTT platforms now come with subtitles, which means that you do not have to know Hindi or Telugu to get a feel of the film.
In what is certainly an overkill, we now have a Malayalam edition of the Hindi work. Called Bhramam (Mirage), it may be not an exact frame-by-frame copy of Raghavan’s creation, but is pretty much the same, give and take director Ravi K. Chandran’s attempt at juggling with the narrative. Does this work? No, not at all – at least for those who would have watched Andhadhun/Maestro. For one, Khurrana was superb as the blind pianist, and so was Tabu, as a woman who is married to a much older man – a faded star – and flips for a young cop.
However, unlike Maestro where there was nothing much to talk about the performances, Malayalam actor Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Ray Mathews — who reprises the role essayed by Khurrana – is compelling as a pianist sucked into a heinous crime like murder, committed by a police Chief Inspector (Unni Mukundan’s Abhinav Menon). He is having an affair with the wife, Simi (Mamta Mohandas), of yesteryear celebrity, Uday Kumar (Shankar Panicker). When Uday walks into his own house and catches his wife with the cop, he uses his service revolver. It is at this moment that Ray arrives at Uday’s flat to give a private piano concert, and since he is blind, Simi and Uday take little note of him while they bundle Uday’s body into a suitcase.
Mamta is no Tabu, who acted as the celebrity’s wife in Andhadun, but yes Raashi Khanna (who is Anna, Ray’s girlfriend) stands out, and I felt that she was several notches better than Radhika Apte in Andhadhun. Raashi is expressive and offers a very nuanced piece of acting. But for her and Prithviraj, Bhramam, could have been a crashing bore.
(Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author and a movie critic)
No one can deny that Tom Cruise is a superstar. His level of celebrity is rarely achieved and really may have never been reached before. He’s been at the top of his game for so long that it’s hard to remember a time when he wasn’t the biggest name in the world. Believe it or not, he was once a struggling actor trying to figure out what his next project was going to be. Surprisingly there may be some movies you didn’t even realize he was in. Some were just early in his career or just didn’t make a lot of noise at the box office. Either way, let’s go over some of the best Tom Cruise Movies you haven’t seen.
In one of his earliest roles, Tom Cruise plays David Shawn. A hothead cadet at a military academy. The academy general announces that the board has decided to close the school, but that it will remain open for one more year. This allows the next group of seniors to graduate and the rest of the students to find new schools. After an altercation with some local teenagers, one of the cadets accidentally shoots one of them. This causes a chain of events that causes the cadets to take over the academy and demand the school to remain open. Things get more and more out of hand throughout the film and Cruise’s character causes them way more trouble than they bargained for.
The cast is star-studded with Timothy Hutton and Sean Pean playing some of the main cadets in the school and George C. Scott and Ronny Cox playing military officers. While it is early on in his career, you can easily see how Cruise will push his way to superstardom. Surrounded by such high-caliber talent I’m sure helped him pick up a few things. Worth your time and one of the best Tom Cruise movies.
Released the same year as Risky Business, this film marks the first time Tom Cruise’s name appears above the title on the poster. Cruise plays Stefen, a high school senior that is hoping that his football career will help him get away from the small mill town that he grew up in. Clashes with the football coach put that plan in jeopardy and his relationship with his girlfriend threaten to keep him trapped in a life he doesn’t want.
Cruise does a great job in the film and his constant clashes with the football coach played by Craig T. Nelson show a great side to Cruise as an actor. He knows his life is being flushed away, but he can’t just stand by and do nothing. Lea Thompson has talked about how she was required to do two nude scenes in the film but Cruise talked the producers into dropping one of them and said he would do their scene together completely naked to make it fair. Seems like a stand-up thing to do early in his career. Easily one of the best Tom Cruise movies you haven’t seen. Fix that.
A lot of Tom Cruise fans may not know that this is actually a sequel to a 1961 Paul Newman movie called The Hustler. Newman plays Fast Eddie. He meets Vincent (Cruise) who is one of the best pool players he has ever seen. Eddie takes him under his wing to show him to become a pool hustler. When Vincent becomes a master of the game, Eddie realizes he is tired of living the conman lifestyle. His only reason to play pool now is to beat Vincent one on one.
Having Cruise and Newman together on screen is great. The two play off each other magnificently. Scorsese being behind the camera does hurt either. One thing we always hear about is how dedicated Cruise gets to his roles. Word is he did all but one of the trick shots in the movie on his own. Scorsese said Cruise could easily have learned it over a couple of days but said it would have cost too much to shut down production, so they have a pro take his place for the shot.
Tom Cruise takes the role of Frank T.J. Mackey. He is truly repulsive as he teaches rooms full of men how to seduce women and to rule the encounter with subliminal body language and other tricks. For Cruise, this is a very different character than he is used to playing. The film is an ensemble piece as we see two older men that are dying and trying to reconnect with their estranged adult children. Cruise gives a moving performance when he’s confronted with his father’s death. He says he wouldn’t cry for him but in the end, breaks down sobbing.
Cruise was hesitant to take on such a bold character but Paul Thomas Anderson was able to get him on board. He was well on a rocket to the moon when he jumped onto the movie. Having just done Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire a few years before. He was on the set shooting Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut when he watched Boogie Nights. He called Anderson and said he wanted to be in his next movie. It took some persuading, but he agreed and knocked it out of the park.
At this point Cruise just about had a new movie coming out every year. This pace made him maybe a little oversaturated to the general public. They seemed to turn away from this film but that is a shame. He plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg as he leads a plot from within the Nazi party to assassinate Adolf Hitler. It was based on a real incident during World War II.
Cruise plays a Nazi which is not something you think would ever happen. He was intrigued by the role when he saw a picture of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and was amazed at how similar they looked. While the film grossed over 200 million dollars worldwide it didn’t seem to catch on in the United States. Maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the film and give it its proper due.
What are some of your favorite under-seen Tom Cruise movies? Let us know in the comments.
