Lil Nas X Slams BET With New Song After Awards Snub, Network Responds
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Looks like Seth Meyers might be buying drinks for his writers after he recovers from the latest installment of “Day Drinking.”
Meyers brought back the bit — where he and a celebrity guest drink during the day time, talk, and playt games — on Tuesday’s episode of “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” and this time the guest was rap star Post Malone. And you probably won’t be surprised to discover that Malone was able to drink quite a lot without faltering.
Meyers, meanwhile, accidentally misread the setup for a part where he made cocktails for Malone and thought the writers had messed up. Luckily, he made sure to apologize (he’s a class act) and either way, it was pretty funny.
You can watch the whole clip above right now.
So first, as they drank shots, Meyers and Malone played a game where Meyers asked Malone several questions about himself (Meyers), with Malone drinking whenever he got one wrong. Sorry Seth, I watched it but I can’t remember the title of your Netflix special either.
Then Meyers moved on to the bit where he made cocktails for Malone inspired by Malone’s tattoos.
“True or false, do you have a tattoo that says ‘tired no more,’” Meyers asked.
“Always Tired,” Malone corrected.
“What?” Meyers asked, looking pretty anxious while asking.
“Same thing,” Malone replied, laughing.
“You have, um, a tattoo that’s ‘always tired.’ So our team got the first tattoo wrong,” Meyers quipped, before pouring the cocktail called “Tired No More.”
” Which is the tattoo I’m gonna make those f—ing dummies get,” Meyers continued as Malone laughed.
“I think it’s pretty good, you could sell it,” Malone said.
“And the good news is, we can sell it because the name’s available,” Meyers replied sarcastically.
Right after this, the segment edited in a clip where Meyers corrected the record. “I misread the intro. These are based on [Post Malone’s] tattoos, and I should have known that your tattoo was ‘Always Tired,’ because I’m reading it,” Meyer said. (The tattoo is on Malone’s face.)
“So, I do want to apologize to my writers, who just give their all every day. My goodness, the effort they put into this show. And uh, yeah, so, so sorry,” Meyers added as Malone cracked up.
After this segment, they played a game called “Post It,” because get it? Post Malone? Anyway, “Post It” is basically the party game known as “Celebrity,” where people put a post-it note with a celeb’s name on their forehead and try to guess who it is based on clues other people give them.
After that, Malone drew a bunch of fake tattoos on Meyers’ face with a sharpie, based on things Meyers says he likes. Then they wrapped it up with a drunken rendition of “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” the theme song from the classic sitcom “Cheers.”
Looks like Seth Meyers might be buying
Nearly a year ago, YouTube TV announced plans to add 5.1 surround sound support for its streaming TV package. When we spoke to YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan earlier this year on The Vergecast about new features rolling out for the platform, he told us it would arrive soon. Now, it’s here for more devices, including the most recent Chromecast with Google TV.
The company announced that, in addition to previously existing surround sound support on traditional Chromecasts and TVs made by Vizio, LG, or Samsung, the immersive audio experience is rolling out to Google TV, Android TV, and Roku.
According to a support page for YouTube TV, if you have a compatible hardware setup and the program you’re watching is available with 5.1 audio, it should turn on automatically. If you’re watching something and you’re not sure if it’s coming through, one way to check is to open up the correctly named “Stats for nerds” window to see if you can find AC-3/EAC-3 under the codecs section, which indicates you’re on the correct feed.
If you’re hoping to get a few extra channels but stream your YouTube TV subscription package on another device, like Fire TV, Apple TV, PlayStation, or Xbox, the last update in March said YouTube is “still working internally and with partners” to enable the feature on those platforms.
This just in ─────────────⚪️
We know you’ve been waiting, and it’s *finally* ready. 5.1 Audio is rolling out this week across Google TV, Android TV, and Roku devices.
— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) June 7, 2022
Nearly a year ago, YouTube
Kristen Stewart, 32, just made a special announcement that she will be working on a new ghost-hunting reality show project.
The actress jumped to social media to share the ghoulish news and informed fans that casting is currently ongoing for the, ‘most titallating ghost hunting show ever.’
The Twilight alum is partnering with CJ Romero and Scout Productions to bring the project to life.
Boo! Kristen Stewart announces on Instagram that she will be part of a new LGBTQ+ ghost-hunting TV show
Steward alerted viewers on hairstylist CJ Romero’s Instagram about the project. Romero, Stewart, and Scout Productions are all collaborating together to make the series.
Scout Productions is behind television shows such as Queer Eye and The Hype.
The star stated, ‘We need to find the most incredible LGBTQ+ ghost hunters, paranormal specialists, mediums, psychics, investigators who will lead the pack on this super gay ghost hunting adventure.’
New genre: The Spencer actress is jumping into the horror genre with the new scary, ghost series
Romero added a caption on the video, stating, ‘WE ARE CASTING!!!! Kristen, myself, and the team over at @scout.productions have been working really hard on this!! And guess what…NOW WE GET TO CAST THIS THING.’
‘Are you a medium, historian, ghost hunting expert…and also a part of the LGBTQIA+ community?? Well, if so, please go to the link in my bio and apply today!!! Can’t wait to see what you ghouls bring us!’ the hairstylist added.
The 32-year-old has dabbled in various genres throughout her career, including romance, fantasy, thriller, and drama.
Now, the star will tap into a mix of horror and reality TV.
Thrilled: Stewart, 32, looked beyond excited to jump onto a project and genre that is new to her
The actress recently was part of Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, where she played the iconic role of the late Princess Diana.
Her role and dramatic performance of Diana led to her receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Stewart’s latest film she worked on was thriller, Crimes Of The Future, also starring Viggo Mortensen and Lea Seydoux.
The film was directed by Canadian director, David Cronenberg.
Edgy: The star wore a one-piece, sparkly jumpsuit to the premiere of Crimes Of The Future
The film was directed by Canadian director, David Cronenberg, and might not be for people who get queasy easily.
According to Insider, Stewart discussed Cronenberg’s films and that they might be, ‘difficult to watch and it’s fun to talk about people walking out of Cannes screenings.’
The star also talked about how at first, she didn’t really understand what the premise of Cronenberg’s film was.
‘I told him I have no idea what this movie is about, but I’m curious and maybe we can just figure it out,’ the 32-year-old stated.
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If there is any Bollywood couple who shells major couple goals and we look up to is, Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan. The couple got married when none of them was established in their respective careers and stuck to each other through thick and thin. A dotting family man, besides being a superstar, Shah Rukh is always vocal about the contribution Gauri had in his life, and never shies away from supporting her.
Recently, the producer-designer shared a post about a design workshop she launched. Taking to the comment section, Shah Rukh Khan wrote, “I think I will sign up for this… get my study to look better!!”
Take a look:
Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan have three children together- Aryan Khan, Suhana Khan and AbRam Khan.
Shah Rukh Khan can often be seen dropping witty comments on Gauri’s post. In an event, a couple of weeks back, he gave a shout out to his wife’s designing skills as well. Speaking at an event in New Delhi recently, Shah Rukh said, “(I Don’t) Disrupt the designing in the house, because she (Gauri Khan) is a wonderful designer herself. But one of the few things that I’m allowed to do, maybe because there is an understanding that I know technology the best in the house plus the aesthetics are so amazing, that whenever I go and buy a television, (I can) put it any room that I want or any place I wish to..”
Meanwhile, on the work front, Shah Rukh Khan has already announced three projects for 2023. The first month of the year will see his highly-anticipated film Pathaan, where he will reunite with Deepika Padukone. The film also stars John Abraham. He will also be collaborating with Rajkumar Hirani for the first time for a film titled Dunki. shah Rukh Khan was also working with director Atlee for a long time and the title of the film was announced recently. SRK’s first look from Jawan, which also stars Nayanthara, was unveiled. All these films are slated for a 2023 release.
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
If there is any Bollywood couple who
On the June 7, 2022 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor Ben Pearson is joined by /Film news writer Ryan Scott to gather around the virtual water cooler and talk about what they’ve been up to.
Opening Banter:
At The Water Cooler:
Also mentioned:
All the other stuff you need to know:
On the June 7, 2022 episode
As expected, Demimonde will not be moving forward at HBO. The series, which marked the first original created by J.J. Abrams since Fringe in 2008, has officially been passed over by the premium cable network following issues surrounding the show’s sprawling budget. Sources tell THR that Abrams made a last-ditch plea to HBO/HBO Max boss […]
As expected, Demimonde will not be moving
Todd and Julie Chrisley, the stars of the USA reality series Chrisley Knows Best, were convicted on federal bank fraud and tax evasion charges on Tuesday; the husband and wife face up to 30 years in prison.
A jury found them guilty of conspiring to defraud community banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans, according to The Hollywood Reporter. They were also found guilty of conspiring to defraud the IRS and tax evasion; Julie was convicted on separate charges of wire fraud and obstruction of justice as well. The Chrisleys’ attorney says he expects to appeal.
According to prosecutors, Todd and Julie Chrisley submitted fake documents when applying for loans and hid income to avoid paying taxes. The couple’s accountant Peter Tarantino was also convicted of conspiracy to defraud the United States and filing false tax returns. The Chrisleys are currently free on bond and awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 6.
Todd and Julie star in USA’s Chrisley Knows Best, a long-running reality series that follows the antics of them and their kids. Debuting in 2014, Chrisley Knows Best was recently renewed for a tenth season and has spawned a number of spinoffs. (Todd is also set to host the E! dating show Love Limo.) A source tells TVLine that production on Season 10 has not yet begun, and the Season 9 episodes that have not yet aired were filmed before the Chrisleys’ trial began.
Todd and Julie Chrisley, the stars of
What happens to great comedians when they decide to write a musical? Why does their signature sharp wit suddenly turn all squishy and sentimental?
The two most recent examples of this unfortunate phenomenon are Billy Crystal’s “Mr. Saturday Night,” which opened on Broadway this past season, and Sarah Silverman’s “The Bedwetter,” which opened Tuesday at the Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Goss Theater. Crystal’s show is about a comic at the end of his long career and Silverman’s is about a comic at the very beginning of hers. The character is named Sarah Silverman (played by the sassy Zoe Glick), and the book by Silverman and Joshua Harmon uses the comedian’s 2011 memoir, “The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee,” as its source material.
What initially attracts us to Crystal and Silverman’s respective characters, and several of the family members surrounding them, is that they are basically nasty, irreverent and wildly inappropriate in their actions and words. In other words, the lead characters are basically truth-tellers who, unfortunately, end up being reformed.
In “The Bedwetter,” Sarah’s mother (Cassie Levy) prefers to stay in bed watching TV than to raise her two daughters. The reason for her lethargy is made fun of by the 10-year-old Sarah in a way that’s cruel, insensitive and also as spot-on accurate as it is funny. Glick possesses a piercing soprano that goes in one ear and gets stuck there. It takes some getting used to, but the sound soon emerges as yet another quirky character trait that endears us to her.
Also a wicked delight is her father (the wonderfully sated Darren Goldstein), who is a chronic philanderer who has banged all of Sarah’s future friends’ mothers. In addition to being a bed-wetter and Jewish in what appears to be an all-Gentile community in New Hampshire, little Sarah is the new kid in school, a move having been facilitated by her parents’ recent divorce. Being Jewish and the new kid and a closet bed-wetter and having an older sister (Emily Zimmerman, doing her best in an underwritten, thankless role) who is instantly popular in school because she’s gorgeous – these are all subjects that are held up to ridicule for our entertainment. And when Harmon and Silverman’s book and Silverman and Adam Schlesinger’s lyrics hit those targets, “The Bedwetter” is a very perceptive and funny musical.
Best of their creations is Sarah’s grandmother, a role that Bebe Neuwirth clearly relishes. Here’s a chronic drunk who has taught her granddaughter to pour the perfect martini way before the kid hits her teens.
Anne Kauffman’s direction is a little sluggish when it should be rapid-paced, and Laura Jellinek has designed a messy and truly unattractive set. But “The Bedwetter” survives these problems — until late in the first act when Mom sings the clunky song “Your Father and I,” in which she tells her two kids, “Your father and I don’t agree on much these days, it’s true/But we’ve got one thing in common, one thing in common/And that’s how much we love the two of you.”
Since Sarah’s super-smart and has a foul mouth, we expect her to gag after hearing this verbal vomit. Unfortunately, the three writers of “The Bedwetter” have turned off their title character’s BS detector with “Your Father and I.” Sarah believes her mother’s self-defensive drivel, and the musical immediately detours into the land of “Dear Evan Hansen.”
“Father and I” has a country-Western lilt to it, so we’re supposed to take it seriously. But seriously, the late Schlesinger’s composition here, and elsewhere, is no better than his song parodies that make fun of the Miss America beauty pageant and TV commercials (Sarah’s father owns a discount outlet). David Chase’s aggressively jingly orchestrations seem to have been written in the 1970s instead of commenting on the 1970s.
Sarah is the kind of kid who makes a joke – and a funny joke – about the recent murder of John Lennon. Too bad that little girl completely disappears in the ahow’s second act. Bathos overtakes “The Bedwetter,” and somehow all that sticky sentiment delivers an antidote that not only cures Sarah of her bedwetting but it gets Mom out of bed and turns Dad into a good guy, and even Grandma manages to cut her alcohol consumption in half.
Musicals don’t have to pander in this way. The Atlantic Theater’s last musical-theater premiere was the brilliant “Kimberly Akimbo,” which opens on Broadway this fall. In that show, the dysfunctional family is never cured, and ends up as much a mess as when we first meet them.
Perhaps “The Bedwetter” could have been even more saccharine. Silverman & Co. could have had Grandma check into rehab or start attending AA meetings.
Robert Hofler, TheWrap’s lead theater critic, has worked as an editor at Life, Us Weekly and Variety. His books include “The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson,” “Party Animals,” and “Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange, How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos.” His latest book, “Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne,” is now in paperback.
What happens to great comedians when they
“The Andy Warhol Diaries” is a six-part series capturing the artist’s personal life in his own words — using AI technology to recreate his voice. Filmmaker Andrew Rossi brings a fresh perspective to understanding the mercurial icon and his times.
"The Andy Warhol Diaries" is a six-part
As gas prices continue to rise in Saskatchewan, some are searching for other modes of transportation.
On Tuesday, an event was held by Regina Energy Transition, Balfour’s Environmental Club and Fridays for Future Regina to address the issue.
Read more:
Rising grocery, gas costs ‘significantly impacting’ financial stress for Prairie residents: survey
The event was known as Taco Transit Tuesday: a day for free tacos and a call for free public transit for youth.
The organizations had come together to gather signatures for a petition supporting fare-free transit for youth under 18, which they plan to present to Regina city council.
“We see fare-free transit as so essential to everyday life,” said Sophia Young, co-chair of Regina Energy Transition. “It’s what gets us to school, to work and back home to be with our families.”
The petition hopes to expand upon the current rules, which allow kids under 12 to ride the bus for free.
“The city has been absolutely wonderful in getting fare-free transit for 12 and under,” said Young.
“If you are a youth who just came out of elementary school and now has to go to a high school that’s farther away, it makes traveling to school very difficult,” said Young.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
By Andrew Benson Global News Posted June 7, 2022 9:52
Cardi B joined Whipshots to celebrate at WeHo Pride 2022 in West Hollywood.
Cardi B joined Whipshots to celebrate at
AT&T has quietly dropped HBO Max as a bundled perk for new customers on its highest-tier unlimited wireless plan.
The telco’s move comes two months after AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and sold it to Discovery, to form Warner Bros. Discovery. Previously, HBO Max had been available for no extra charge with the AT&T Unlimited Elite wireless plan — and, prior to the launch of HBO Max, the carrier had offered HBO for free on its priciest mobile plans going back to 2017.
“HBO Max is a great service, but we constantly experiment with the features we offer our customers to give them the best value,” an AT&T rep said in a statement to Variety.
AT&T customers who have received HBO Max for no additional charge in previous offers are not affected; they will still have access to the streaming service, as long as they keep their plan. The telco this week launched the AT&T Unlimited Premium plan (replacing Unlimited Elite), which includes 50 gigabytes of hotspot data but no longer includes HBO Max, as noted by Mobile Internet Resource Center. Unlimited Premium starts at $50 per month per line when you get four lines.
Meanwhile, AT&T’s Cricket Wireless brand still currently offers the ad-supported version of HBO Max (regularly $9.99/month) included with its $60 per month unlimited plan.
AT&T unloaded WarnerMedia to become a pure-play telecommunications provider, unwinding its ill-fated foray into the entertainment biz with the acquisitions of Time Warner and DirecTV.
WarnerMedia had been a drag on AT&T’s overall earnings. For Q1 2022 — prior to the close of the Warner Bros. Discovery deal — WarnerMedia’s operating income was $1.3 billion, down 33% year over year. That decline, AT&T said, was largely a result of “continued investments in HBO Max” as well as in CNN+, the subscription-streaming service that WBD almost immediately shuttered post-close, coming less than a month after its launch.
As of the end of March, HBO Max and HBO had 76.8 million total subscribers worldwide, including 48.6 million domestically. That was a 3 million quarterly net gain for HBO Max/HBO, which matched that in the year-earlier period.
AT&T has quietly dropped HBO Max as
Ela Minus performs “megapunk” live in Chicago for Pitchfork Music Festival 2021.
Ela Minus performs “megapunk” live in Chicago
Over the last few years, Kid Cudi has become the face of vulnerability and recovery in an otherwise closed-off music industry. Now, the rapper is opening up about how far he’s come since checking into rehab in 2016, as well was what he hopes the future of mental health will look like for the next generation.
During the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center Dinner, an intimate number of famous friends, esteemed guests, and industry legends gathered to discuss America’s latest epidemic: the youth mental health crisis. Vogue Editor in Chief and Global Content Officer Anna Wintour, who is a founding committee member, hosted the initiative’s festivities alongside Brent Saunders and Tory Burch at Saint Theo’s in New York City.
This year’s NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center Dinner marks the 11th anniversary of the program, aiming to de-stigmatize conversations around mental illness and help vulnerable youth seek treatment. Over the pandemic, depression rates have skyrocketed, leading teenagers to report record rates of feeling unwell. With five clinics so far, the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center sees nearly 50,000 visits each year, as well as spearhead a digital application to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy to patients who don’t live in New York.
Guests included Theophilio founder Edvin Thompson, model and Teen Vogue cover star Yumi Nu, activist Huma Abedin, and Vogue China Editor in Chief Margaret Zhang.
In conversation with Vogue.com‘s editor Chioma Nnadi, Kid Cudi—born Scott Mescudi—candidly revealed to guests that he first began acknowledging his anxiety and depression when he was 15 and 16, after his father passed away a few years earlier. The rapper went on to reveal that he felt that he had no proper resources to help him, instead during to drugs and alcohol to mask his pain, until he checked into a Malibu rehabilitation center years later.
“it was one of those things where it was just like, how do you come up to mom who’s dealing with four kids, and your dad died, and she’s taking care of everybody on her own, that you’re dealing with something,” he said about his upbringing.
Since 2016, Cudi has used his massive scale for good, often touching upon mental wellness both within his artistic endeavors and his personal social media. Naturally, his rehab stint, he admits, was a necessary pause—forcing Cudi to step back and pace himself when it comes to his work. He’s taken up to checking in on his 12-year-old daughter, Vada, who’s coming up on a pivotal age with social media use, and encouraging conversations promoting internal reflection.
Just like the NewYork-Presbyterian Youth Anxiety Center, Kid Cudi has his hopes places in young people. While the night served as a reminder for all the work that needs to be done, it was also a hopeful nudge in the right direction that, in the end, the kids will be alright.
“Everything that I’m about, she’s about,” he explained. “This is a taste of the next generation. She accepts me for as wild and rock-n-roll as I am.
Over the last few years, Kid Cudi
Few documentaries looking at the past offer as real a vision of the future as “The Janes.”
Directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes have taken a look at a dozen or so women who came together in Chicago to secure abortions at a time when the procedure was illegal in most of the country.
These overwhelmingly white, middle-class, ordinary women counseled and arranged for abortions — and later provided them themselves — at risk of arrest and prison in the years before Roe v. Wade.
They called themselves Jane, a codename randomly picked, and their motive was not money or fame, but giving women who did not want a child an option. They had no medical or legal background, just compassion.
“Not only was there the need but a philosophical obligation on our part to disrespect a law that disrespected women,” one says. Another adds: “We were building a new world, and we were doing that one woman at a time.”
“The Janes” arrives on HBO and HBO Max a few weeks after a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court opinion shows a conservative majority of justices are ready to topple the court’s landmark 1973 ruling that established abortion rights nationwide.
Lessin and Pildes do a masterful job of putting the Janes in historical context, seeing how their desire to offer safe abortions grew out of the revolutionary ‘60s and yet how women’s issues were often deemed secondary to male-led efforts. The directors’ vision is straightforward, not using the Janes for anything other than what they were: quixotic Middle-American outlaws.
The filmmakers explain that the late 1960s were a time when a woman brought to a hospital after a rape would be lectured about her promiscuity. To get the Pill or a diaphragm, they had to be married. And it was a time when pregnant women were not allowed to work.
Without safe abortions, women made horrific decisions that could lead to the morgue. A medical student at the time recalls, “What was seared into my brain was what desperate people will do when they think they have no other choice.”
Enter the Janes, who performed about 11,000 abortions between 1968-73, operating between the mafia and the police. When the man they relied on to perform the abortions left, they taught themselves how to do it. Some in the group had lived through their own abortions and vowed to make it better for the next woman.
They would talk each patient through the procedure and recovery. They shuttled them to safe houses for the procedure, writing their names and details down on index cards. Some of the most powerful moments of the film are the elderly Janes holding handfuls of these cards and rereading them, each a story of anguish. (“Scared of pain” reads one, and “Cautious — father is a cop,” reads another.)
The filmmakers employ the standard talking head format but coax out remarkable stories not only from the Janes but also from clergy members, a reluctant homicide detective who arrested seven Janes and even the shady abortionist they relied on.
They also make clever use of old ’60s footage, like when a Jane recalls the snowballing effect of desperate women calling her for help and the screen pans across a bank of public payphones all occupied by women. Frayed footage from the news and marches are added to random images of women out and about, sunbathing and doing errands.
Enough time has passed that the women in the group are able to put their work in context, admitting the racial disparity within the Janes, the absurdity of the situation and the lack of planning for the inevitable bust. “You were a little playing god and we were young,” says one.
Lessin and Pildes end the film with the relief felt by the Janes that the 1973 decision Row v. Wade had put them out of the abortion business forever. “We thought it was over. We thought we had won,” one says.
But the filmmakers leave any speculation about today aside, letting the past speak unconnected to today’s struggle. Unspoken is that we will need the Janes again. At one point, one of the former members picks up and displays the metal tools she used to access a woman’s cervix and scrape the uterine wall. “I haven’t done this in a while,” she admits.
She may be called upon again sooner than she ever thought.
___
“The Janes,” an HBO Documentary Films release, is not rated but has adult language and situations. Running time: 101 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
___
Online: https://www.hbo.com/movies/the-janes
___
Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Few documentaries looking at the past offer
Alan Goldberg is a frustrated slasher movie screenwriter in the Hollywood of 1985 who feels his career is at a standstill, but his luck is about to change: Helen Westmore, an eccentric millionaire, will grant him anything he could wish for if he is able to find genius horror director Edward Keller’s last, unpublished work, which is said to be the scariest film of all time.
What twists and turns await Alan? Discover the full story on June 16, when Nightmare Frames comes to PC on Steam and Itch.io.
Key features
· Point & click adventure game solely based on inventory puzzles.
· An investigative thriller that gets darker as you progress into the story. From ambient horror to the gory depths of Hell.
· More than 80 playable locations, and 50 characters to interact with.
· Original soundtrack by synthwave musician Stefano Rossi.
· In Joe’s Diner you’ll be able to listen to SYNTHWAVE FM, where DJ Karen Johnson broadcasts licensed tracks by Heclysma, Decade Defector, Vincenzo Salvia and Self Delusion.
Alan Goldberg is a frustrated slasher movie
HBO is officially not moving forward with J.J. Abrams’ ambitious HBO sci-fi drama series Demimonde. The decision comes after weeks of discussions with Abrams, his Bad Robot production company and Warner Bros. Television which were focused on the show’s budget. As Deadline reported last month, the studios on the project, Warner Bros. Television and HBO, had been trying to rein in costs, but Bad Robot kept firm on their proposed budget, said to be in the mid-$200 million range, and would not agree to a reduction.
The final stages of the Demimonde conversations were held against the background of a larger reevaluation of the massive deal Abrams’ Bad Robot has at Warner Bros for film, TV, gaming and digital content as the new Warner Bros. Discovery is scrutinizing every aspect of the assets they took over when the merger was completed in April.
Bought by HBO four years ago with a straight-to-series order, Demimonde, which was developed and sold under Bad Robot’s previous WBTV pact, was still in early pre-production when the plug was pulled.
Written, executive produced and to be directed by Abrams, Demimonde, his first solo TV creation since Alias, was to star Danielle Deadwyler as Olive Reed who is torn away from her husband and daughter in a brutal scientific accident. She is forced to unravel a conspiracy to reunite with her family, now lost to a dark, distant other world.
Kira Snyder, Rand Ravich & Far Shariat served as showrunners. They executive produced with Bad Robot’s Abrams and Ben Stephenson. Rachel Rusch Rich was co-executive producer.
Last summer, HBO Max opted not to go forward with another Bad Robot series, The Shining offshoot series Overlook. The project has since been set up at Netflix. It is unclear whether Demimonde would be shopped to other buyers.
HBO is officially not moving forward with
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has named Bill Kramer, the current director and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, as its new CEO. Kramer will succeed Dawn Hudson, who has occupied the position for the past 11 years.
Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the Academy’s board of governors voted unanimously to offer Kramer the job, which he will begin on July 18.
As CEO, Kramer will oversee the Oscars as well as the Academy’s global membership, education and emerging talent initiative and extensive collections in the Margaret Herrick Library and Academy Film Archive, as well as the Academy Museum and its exhibitions, screenings, programs and operations.
Kramer was associated with the Academy Museum from its earliest stages. As the museum’s managing director of development and external relations starting in 2012, he raised $250 million to help get the project underway, but left after his ambition for a greater role in the museum’s oversight was not forthcoming. But things did not work out with the initial museum director, Kerry Brougher, and Kramer was recruited to return in that role in 2019.
Overall, the museum, which opened to the public in September 2021, has been an Academy success story at a time when the organization has faced one bruising situation after another, from Oscars So White to Envelopegate to Slapgate. True, it went way over-budget and over-schedule, but that was mostly the result of decisions made prior to Kramer’s return. And since he has been back, despite the ongoing pandemic, the museum has sold more than 550,000 tickets and generated sales of $5.5 million from the museum’s retail store.
The museum’s exhibitions and programming has been widely lauded, other than criticism about its initial oversight of the industry’s Jewish founders, which Kramer quickly addressed.
“Bill Kramer has been a transformational leader in establishing the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures as a beacon for movie lovers and a manifestation of everything the Academy represents and celebrates,” the Academy’s outgoing president, David Rubin, said in a statement. “His vision for the Academy’s future is likewise bold and inspiring, and our governors have agreed he is the ideal choice to lead at this pivotal moment for the organization. We believe Bill has the ability to bring together all corners of the motion picture community, and we’re thrilled to have him in this role to elevate the organization and unite our global membership.”
Kramer will replace Hudson, the Academy’s first female CEO, whose tenure was highly polarizing. The Harvard alum made her name as the CEO of Film Independent before joining the Academy in 2011. She took early heat for her management style (numerous high-level employees departed or were forced out) and spending (most notably for an expensive redecoration of the Academy’s Wilshire Blvd. headquarters). But she was applauded in many circles for leading the Academy’s efforts to diversify its workforce and membership. (The number of women and underrepresented ethnic/racial communities with Oscar votes more than doubled during her tenure).
Hudson also oversaw the creation of Aperture 2025, an initiative that, among other things, established “inclusion standards” for Oscars eligibility, which has proven more divisive. And she took heat for her response, or lack thereof, to Will Smith’s behavior at the Oscars earlier this year.
Other notable changes during Hudson’s tenure have included the phasing out of paper Oscar ballots and the phasing in of online Oscar voting; the phasing out of hard-copy screeners and the phasing in of the Academy Screening Room streaming service; and the Academy stepping in to serve as the middleman — for a fee — for all communications sent to its members.
But Hudson’s legacy at the Academy may be colored most, in the long run, by the museum, a dream of the Academy’s founders nearly a century ago, which finally began to come together under her watch.
On Tuesday, Rubin lauded Hudson’s contributions: “I cannot stress enough the deep respect and appreciation we have for the groundbreaking achievements Dawn Hudson has brought to the Academy during her eleven years as CEO. She initiated unprecedented efforts to create more space for diverse voices, both within the membership and our industry. She was tireless in shepherding our long-awaited museum to its opening and has fortified the Academy’s financial stability, allowing us to develop programs and provide mentoring for those in front of and behind the camera. Our gratitude for her accomplishments and guidance is beyond measure.”
Hudson, for her part, said, “What a privilege it’s been to work with an exceptionally talented staff and dedicated board members to create a truly global institution, a world-class museum that honors this art form so beautifully, an abiding commitment to representation and inclusion, and a modern organization ready to lead in a changing world. I’ve worked with Bill for close to a decade, and no executive is more innovative, more connected to artists, or more passionate about the opportunities that lie ahead than he is. The Academy and the Academy Museum are in the best of hands.”
Added Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, the chair of the Academy Museum’s board of trustees, “The Academy Museum Board of Trustees is thrilled that Bill will be continuing his work with us as the CEO of the Academy and as a Trustee of the Museum Board. The museum’s opening has been a resounding success, and I look forward to working with Bill to help further amplify the museum’s robust programs and create a unifying and strategic vision for the future.”
Kramer said in a statement: “It is the great honor of my career to take on the role as CEO of the Academy. I deeply believe in the power and artistry of cinema. I so look forward to galvanizing the unparalleled assets of the Academy — the Oscars, our global community of more than 10,000 Academy members, and our museum, library, and archive — to promote and elevate the arts and sciences of the movies and inspire the next generation of filmmakers. I am deeply grateful for this opportunity and for the incredible work of my colleagues Brendan Connell, Jr. and Jacqueline Stewart, who will continue the exceptional work of the Academy Museum.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Queen was on hand to help Queen Elizabeth II rock out her Platinum Jubilee. At the June 4 event, the iconic British rock band and their “American Idol” alum lead singer Adam Lambert performed a rousing medley of familiar smash hits like “Don’t Stop Me Now” and “We Are the Champions.” Lambert has been the voice of the band since 2011, but it was Freddie Mercury who first lent his vocals to these rock classics. As the band rose to fame throughout the 1970s, Mercury became an icon for his vibrant stage persona, decadent offstage exploits, and operatic vocal delivery. Mercury died of complications from HIV/AIDS in 1991. However, besides their Platinum Jubilee performance Queen has given fans another reason to celebrate. As per Variety, the band has announced that they will be releasing a previously lost track featuring vocals by the legendary Freddie Mercury in September.
The band’s drummer Roger Taylor told BBC’s Zoe Ball, “We did find a little gem from Freddie that we’d kind of forgotten about and it was — It’s wonderful. Actually, it was a real discovery. It’s from The Miracle sessions.”
Taylor is referring to The Miracle, the band’s thirteenth studio album, which was released in 1989. Recording sessions for the album produced a lot of material, with some tracks used as b-sides and bonus tracks on the CD release.
Brian May, the band’s guitarist, described the now restored ‘lost’ track featuring Mercury as, “kind of hiding in plain sight. We looked at it many times and thought, oh no, we can’t really rescue that. But in fact, we went in there again, and our wonderful engineering team went, ‘okay, we can do this and this.’ It’s like kind of stitching bits together. But it’s beautiful, it’s a touching piece.”
Taylor chimed in that the piece was “passionate.” This isn’t the first time Queen has unearthed previously unreleased material from Mercury and shared it with fans. In 2014, the band released a compilation album of unheard Mercury material called Queen Forever.
It is an apt title, as interest in the band and love from their fans for the memory of Freddie Mercury has undoubtedly had a long reign, with no end in sight.
Queen was on hand to help
Creating an independent film is no easy task and launching a film without the support of a big banner production company is a feat all passionate filmmakers hope to achieve. However, despite the amount of hard work you put into the write-up, direction, and production of your indie film, you wouldn’t be able to taste success if you don’t make a successful attempt at promoting it. This is because without your masterpiece receiving a good promotion, people wouldn’t even get to know about it and hence you’d be receiving zero reception no matter how good your film may be.
Hence, in addition to focusing on the screenplay and cinematography, you should also attempt to focus on your film’s promotional activities. Without a good promotion strategy, you would be setting up your film for failure and given below are six ways you can promote your indie film production:
Creating teasers and a trailer for your indie film should essentially be a no-brainer. While teasers are essentially short clips with little to no context shot and released during production, trailers are edited post-production and feature a premise, the beginning, mid, and ending of a film. If you want to create a buzz about your film early on, you must invest time into creating attention-grabbing teasers that are followed by a trailer that further hooks your potential audience. You can share these on YouTube and other video-sharing websites for increased reach.
Any venture one embarks on these days has to have a social and digital presence for it to seem like the real deal to its potential audience, and films are no different. Since your indie film isn’t under the banner of a big production, you need to cover all your bases and maintain a presence on all social media platforms and create a website. You can use all these platforms to make important announcements about your film, its releases, and regular updates. You may also choose to run your blog on the said website and update content throughout the production process.
Whether this blog is dedicated to your production or whether this is a blog created especially for your movie and its release, you should run and update a blog nonetheless. The blog should function as a stage where you can promote your movie, and ideally feature related content such as the process of what went into the indie movie’s creation, the inspiration, behind-the-scenes action, and the thoughts of the cast and crew. By conveying what went into the film and its production, you would be able to portray your work seriously as a producer and hence increase the chances of your movie’s success.
In addition to the digital realm, you should also focus on traditional marketing media for your film’s promotion. Outdoor signs, posters, newspaper and magazine ads, press releases, and features in local newspapers are some of the common ways to conduct traditional marketing and promotion for your indie film. If you are releasing your film in the United States, know that outdoor signs can be costly, yet incredibly effective. Make sure to get the most bang for your buck by advertising in various locations, such as billboards in phoenix, Chicago, New York, and other populous cities around the country. Try to land interviews and spots in local news and radio stations to promote your film locally as well as nationally.
For most indie films, the path to success begins with them featuring in a film festival, and you should too look to get featured in one. Film festivals open movies to additional avenues and audiences that wouldn’t otherwise be possible for them as an indie feature. Since film festivals bring together big names from the film fraternity, your film being featured could help bring recognition to you as a producer and help you gain attention from A-listers in the industry. You could also garner reviews and ratings for your film, and may even end up bagging an award or two. Getting featured in a film festival is essentially coveted by many filmmakers and look for a festival that features a theme close to that of your movie to increase your chances of landing a spot.
While promoting your indie feature may feel like a daunting task at first, once you get the hang of it you will find it growing on you. Movie promotion can be a fun task to engage in, and getting the chance to promote your hard work would bring you more joy than you can imagine. By putting at work the above tips in your film promotion strategy, you would be able to get the word out about your film in no time, and hopefully see success as an indie film producer.
I began writing as a professional on my personal blog and then discovered my true calling, which is writing about technology, News, and gadgets in general. I am a technical writer, author, and blogger since 2010. An industry watcher that stays on top of the latest features, extremely passionate about juicy tech news and everything related to gadgets.
Creating an independent film is no easy
The family of Tamil asylum seekers held in detention for more than four years have finally begun their journey home to the central Queensland town of Biloela.
Speaking from Perth airport on Wednesday, Priya Murugappan, also known as Priya Nadesalingam, thanked the community in Western Australia, where the family has spent the past 12 months, before beginning the journey east.
“Me and my family are very happy to start our journey back to my community in Bilo,” she said.
Murugappan also thanked staff at Perth Children’s hospital who treated her daughter Tharnicaa for a blood infection after she was medically evacuated from Christmas Island last year.
The timing of the journey means Tharnicaa will celebrate her fifth birthday in Biloela on Sunday. She was just nine months old when the family first entered detention.
Priya, her husband, Nades, and their Australian-born daughters Kopika, 6, and Tharnicaa, 4, are expected to arrive in Biloela on Friday afternoon.
Biloela will celebrate its Flourish multicultural festival on Saturday, which is likely to double as a welcome home party.
The family has been through protracted legal proceedings in an attempt to stay in Australia and were moved from Melbourne to Christmas Island before arriving in Perth.
A change in government has paved the way for their return to Biloela.
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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said he was proud the family was returning home.
“We grabbed this family in the middle of the night, took them down to Melbourne, then took them to Christmas Island, then they’ve ended up in Perth,” he said on Wednesday.
“These little girls, who were born in Australia, have got not just mental health issues but physical health issues as well.”
The family was taken from Biloela in March 2018 and put in immigration detention, kicking off a more than 1500-day campaign from locals to get them back.
Nearly 600,000 people signed Home to Bilo campaigner Angela Frederick’s Change.org petition in support of the family, and more than 53,000 phone calls and emails were made to Australian politicians from the family’s supporters across the country.
In 2019, courts blocked a Coalition attempt to send the family back to Sri Lanka.
They were held at the Christmas Island detention centre for two years until then immigration minister Alex Hawke moved them to community detention in Perth in mid-2021.
After the change of government, the interim home affairs minister, Jim Chalmers, exercised his power under section 195A of the Migration Act to allow the family’s passage home.
“The effect of my intervention enables the family to return to Biloela, where they can reside lawfully in the community on bridging visas while they work towards the resolution of their immigration status, in accordance with Australian law,” he said last month.
The family of Tamil asylum seekers held
Lizzo, a three-time Grammy winner, is entering a new awards season campaign — but this time, she’s a TV star.
In March, reality competition series “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” debuted on Amazon Prime Video. The project, now a contender in the Emmys reality race, was the first to come out of the Lizzo’s first look deal with Amazon Studios, and follows the singer as she puts 13 plus-sized dancers through a series of boot camp challenges in hopes of getting them ready to join her on tour.
“Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” sets itself apart from other competition series from the start. Rather than focusing on dance training alone, Lizzo provides the contestants with personal enrichment opportunities with trained professionals in disciplines like sensual movement and photography. And she doesn’t take any joy in eliminating girls from the process. Instead of regular elimination trials, she seeks to bring as many people with her on tour as possible, and promises a few of the girls who don’t make the tour that if they keep working at it, they’ll get another chance to dance with her.
“I’ve never really felt entitled to accolades or awards. My dream with music wasn’t to make a million dollars and win a Grammy,” she says while reflecting on her Emmys campaign. “It was like, ‘I want to write a song that the whole world sings back at me.’ [With] ‘Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,’ I wanted to change the lives of the girls on my show, and my own life, and the lives of the people who watched it. So many people have watched and pointedly decided to speak to themselves better. To listen to and love their bodies. That is the greatest award anyone can ever hope for.”
Lizzo spoke to Variety about performing with the Big Grrrls on “Saturday Night Live,” singing with Harry Styles and what’s ahead for her deal with Amazon
How did you develop the format for this series? Why did you decide against a more structured system for sending people home?
If we had sent someone home every episode, I wouldn’t have dancers. And most importantly, the reality is that the door has been shut in these women’s faces. They’ve heard the word “no” way more than “yes.” I didn’t want to bring them to L.A., move them into a mansion and just treat them the same way that the world has treated them. That wasn’t the goal.
I didn’t set out to shift the paradigm in reality competition TV, but I definitely didn’t want to do it the way it’s always been done. I wanted to imagine a world where we can help people prepare for life instead of tear them down and humiliate them. That’s how I want all TV to be. That’s how I want life to be. Encourage me! Prepare me! You don’t have to tell me yes all the time, but show me how to get to that yes.
What was it like to have an open casting process?
Casting was really difficult, because the people who auditioned really, really wanted it. We’re talking about an untapped market here, a well of extremely talented, beautiful women with stories that deserve to be shared. The urgency siphoned them through the process. With the 13 girls, there was a sense of, “This person needs this story to be shared now, because this is going to connect with so many people.” The beauty is that you would assume because they’re big girls in dance, their story would be the same, but it’s not. There was so much nuance and depth.
As soon as I got the greenlight to do the show, I was going on TikTok to find raw talent. We actually got a few girls from TikTok. I think it was important for people to see that we’re not going to talent agencies and hiring actors. These are real people.
How did SZA (aka Solána Imani Rowe) end up coming to watch the girls perform and give them feedback as a guest?
SZA is a good friend of mine. I was telling her about the show, and she was like “I want to be part of it!” I was like, “Say less.” It wasn’t like we needed a celebrity on the show; it was from her genuine excitement and desire to be there. She moved so much around her schedule just to make it work.
At that point in the competition, these girls had been through a lot. Seeing Solána there was such a pick-me-up — and in a way, a second audition. I’m not stingy. What I really want is for these girls to have successful careers, whether it’s with me or anyone else. Whether we do a Season 2 or I do a whole different show, [I’m] thinking about how we can shake up the industry by getting these girls hooked up with as many artists as possible. SZA, just based on seeing them once, was like, “I really like her, and I really like her!” It was cool to be able to expose these girls who otherwise would have never been able to get representation to get into an audition room and have a shot to dance for SZA.
They’re so grateful for every moment. They’re fired up, and that energy comes to life on stage. At “SNL,” all four girls were from the “Big Grrrls” show. I wasn’t trying to make a point — I genuinely wanted them. I wanted Asia [Banks] and Crystal [Williams], who are in the music video for “About Damn Time.” And Sydney [Bell] and Charity [Holloway] have just been dancing their asses off lately. Even though they didn’t make it on the TV show to the tour, they’ve stepped it up so much in the past few months that I was like, “Give them a call.”
It was really special to see you make good on your promise that you would continue to look out for them even though they weren’t chosen to join your tour.
The crazy part about it is that I didn’t even think about this TV show when I booked them [for “SNL”]. We did an activation at SXSW. The show wrapped in August, and SXSW is in March. There was so much time in between. And Charity was dancing so good. You could tell that a fire was lit under her. This girl was just dancing her ass off, and I was like, “I need to dance with her again.” All my friends were like, “Damn, she’s shaking that ass!” It just made you attracted to her. It made you want her around you.
And Sydney is such a star. My biggest issue with Sydney back then was that I wanted her to prioritize herself. I’ve had issues in the past where dancers would get injured, and I have to make sure they’re safe, and then I also have to fly someone to Paris last minute and teach them the whole set. It is a huge liability. I wanted her to be aware of the gravity of that. She really has been doing the work, and she’s been dancing so good too. You can’t deny the dance, honey.
After it happened, people were going, “Oh my god, you made good on your promise! You a real one!” I’m like, damn, I wasn’t even thinking about that. They made good on their promise to themselves. I’m so proud.
Speaking of live performances, let’s talk about your surprise appearance during Harry Styles’ Coachella set in April. When are you two getting in the studio together?
I don’t know — I didn’t even know I was doing Coachella! He’s so good at what he does, and he’s just the kindest person. Anything’s possible. If I fit into his plan, honey, I’m there.
What’s coming next out of your first look deal with Amazon Studios?
I actually filmed something that is a dream. I woke up this morning thinking about it. I can’t wait for it to come out. I can’t talk about it, but I’m so excited.
Can you say whether it’s a scripted or unscripted project?
It’s scripted. I have so many ideas. “Watch Out for the Big Grrrls” was a show that I had an idea for years and years ago, when I first signed to my management back in like 2018. So I got more like that in the bank. It’s just timing. We gotta make sure the time is right and that we can pull it off, because I got big ideas, honey. There’s nothing small about me.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Lizzo, a three-time Grammy winner, is entering
Kara Swisher is returning to Vox Media.
The technology writer and commentator will leave The New York Times, where she was a columnist and podcast host, next month as she plans to launch a new podcast with Vox Media. The new series will serve as a companion show to Pivot, the podcast Swisher hosts with Scott Galloway for Vox’s New York magazine.
“Vox Media has been a great creative partner over the course of the last seven years,” Swisher said on Tuesday. “So I am incredibly excited to expand my work with them on a new show that will be essential listening for the current moment, as well as continuing working (and sparring) with Scott on building out the Pivot universe across platforms.”
Swisher first joined the Times in 2018, where she published columns and newsletters for the opinion section about the ins and outs of Silicon Valley. In 2020, working with the Times’ audio team, launched Sway, an interview podcast that has featured guests like Jason Kilar, Elon Musk, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee and Monica Lewinsky. With her departure for Vox, Sway will release its last episode in late July, while Swisher’s last newsletter for the paper will be published on June 30, according to the Times’ opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury and audio director Paula Szuchman.
While at the Times, Swisher maintained a business relationship with Vox as she continued to host Pivot and the annual Code Conference. Her ties with Vox also date back to 2015, when she and her co-founder Walt Mossberg sold their site Recode to the media company.
“It’s been a personal joy and honor of mine to know and work with Kara for over two decades,” Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff said. “She’s a force of nature and the best interviewer in journalism. Vox Media couldn’t be more excited to build off the unparalleled success of the Pivot franchise that we’ve built with her and Scott and to expand our partnership with her.”
Bloomberg first reported Swisher’s departure from the Times.
Kara Swisher is returning to Vox Media. The
MSNBC’s Joy Reid compared Fox News’ plan to skip live coverage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings to decisions made by the hierarchy of the medieval Church.
In Reid’s examination of Fox News’ broadcasting decision, the host compared the platform’s tactics to that of the Church’s use of stained-glass windows in medieval Europe.
“Just leave the reading and interpreting to the Church hierarchy,” Reid said in a “The ReidOut” segment on Tuesday. “That is basically what Fox News is doing.
“They are saying leave it to Rupert’s folks, you don’t need to watch it for yourself,” Reid added, referring to Rupert Murdoch, the founder of Fox News parent company News Corp.
Reid began her segment by detailing how the Church used stained glasses to spread the message of God.
“Those windows were the primary way for churches to spread their message about God to the poor,” Reid said. “It was the only way they could communicate the vision to a large swath of a largely illiterate mass.”
In Reid’s assessment, the host referenced a Washington Post article, which examined how Fox News viewers react to other news outlets’ broadcasts. “The Center of Open Science recently published a study showing how Fox News viewers are influenced by their coverage and when they are forced to watch a different network they walk away with a broader sense of knowledge and one that makes them less likely to agree with what Fox is saying,” Reid summarized.
Reid then drew the comparison by outlining the measures the Church would take in order to preach its messages. “The Church went further in enforcing their preferred narrative — they banned translated versions of the Bible,” said Reid, who pointed out nearly every major TV news outlet will be airing the Jan. 6 committee hearings starting Thursday — except Fox News.
Watch “The ReidOut” segment in full here or below.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid compared Fox News’ plan
Eleven years ago, when Purity Ring released their breakout single, “Ungirthed,” the pairing of dirty South-style rap beats and twee synth pop was remarkably novel. Even during the heyday of witch-house artists like SALEM and oOoOO, nothing quite compared to the contrast between producer Corin Roddick’s whimsical grit and Megan James’ macabre yet sweetly sung lyrics. The Edmonton, Alberta, duo had captured lightning in a bottle, and they continued to harness its spark across three albums.
That’s not to say Purity Ring have never tried new things. In 2015, their sophomore album, another eternity, seemed meant to counter any accusation that the 11 songs on 2012’s Shrines were all variations on one great idea. Roddick added fluorescent EDM synths and stately piano to his 808-driven rhythms; James began experimenting with a more explicitly pop-oriented cadence and elocution. WOMB, their moodier third album, was in many ways a beefed-up return to form—girded with rich atmospherics, heavier synths, and processed vocal hooks on par with contemporary chart-toppers.
Two years after WOMB, the graves EP is firmly rooted in the same subtle reconfiguration that comes with each new Purity Ring release. Some songs even sound outright regressive, which isn’t always bad. James has said that the title track “has been haunting us for eight straight years,” and its bouncy trance chords and glowing piano clearly recall the euphoric rushes on another eternity. The touches of 2010s nostalgia are charming, but less so when “nthngsfine” and “unlucky” evoke an overproduced and undercooked Shrines. When James breathily sings, “How lucky you are to be so unlucky, breaking onto the rooftops over Waikiki,” amid clouds of effects and reversed synths, it sounds both convoluted and ill-fitting. Simple compositions and evocative lyrics were integral parts of Purity Ring, and without them, the music feels more like a glittery spectacle than an immersive pop world.
With every layer of polish shellacked onto their core sound, the people behind Purity Ring’s genre tropes and dark poetics grow increasingly obscured. James has always favored evocative abstractions in her lyrics, but there’s less to grasp here than before. Small illustrative moments appear (“You sailed away on a sunken boat,” goes a memorable line in “neverend”), but they’re often undercut by non-sequiturs (“This city’s fucked but how’d you know about the side road”) or throwaway refrains (“Spinning like you never end, just do it again let’s do it again”). “watersong” is a fine little ditty with an interestingly choppy synth line and sticky melody, but it’s riddled with vocal quirks and half-baked lyrics that interrupt the song’s easygoing flow. At best, James’ angelic lilt can elevate her words beyond meaning. At worst, her over-pronunciation, heavy vocal processing, and awkward word choices can kill a track’s momentum and leave it thematically barren.
Eleven years ago, when Purity Ring released
The debate around American sex education doesn’t get much more personal than “A Sexplanation,” an insightful documentary in which the director Alex Liu explores the politics and culture of sex ed in the United States while confronting his own shame around sexuality that stems back to his adolescence.
As far as its approach to the topic, “A Sexplanation,” available on demand, is hardly reinventing the wheel. Liu, who identifies as gay and previously wrote for the PBS educational program “Nova ScienceNow,” is not shy in expressing his preference for comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only curriculums. He travels around the country and to Canada to interview a variety of sexual health experts, researchers and educators who dish out common talking points on the topic of reform: Shame-based programming doesn’t work; lessons should incorporate discussion about consent and cover L.G.B.T.Q.-inclusive experiences; conversations about pornography can help teenagers decipher between reality and fantasy and gain more realistic ideas about sex and relationships. On the other side of the debate, Liu interviews Todd Weiler, a Republican member of the Utah State Senate who has lobbied to mandate pornography filters on the internet, and speaks with several anti-abortion campaigners outside the San Francisco Women’s March.
Liu’s cheekiness occasionally leads him to some “Supersize Me”-esque stunts, like when he masturbates in an M.R.I. machine as part of a comprehensive scientific study on how orgasms affect brain activity. But he’s equally willing to bare his whole emotional self, like when he speaks to a particularly open-minded Catholic priest on the nature of sex and intimacy or has an awkward yet sweet heart-to-heart with his own parents about sex. Liu lends a frankness and sensitivity to the topic that would make “A Sexplanation” suitable to be shown in a classroom, which was perhaps his intention all along.
A Sexplanation
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
The debate around American sex education doesn’t
During Geeked Week, Netflix gave fans a first look at Day Shift, an upcoming action movie featuring Jamie Foxx as a vampire hunter. The first look video guaranteess Day Shift will bring relentless action to the public, while also underlining how director JJ Perry prioritized practical effects while shooting the film.
In the new video, Foxx promises Day Shift will have plenty of “eating popcorn moments,” which means the film is being made to be as entertaining as an action film can be. Foxx is apparently right since the brief video contains fragments of dozens of different fights between the star and hordes of blood-sucking monsters. In Day Shift, Foxx works as part of an international Union of vampire hunters, taking down monsters during the day to give his daughter a good life.
The first look at Day Shift has car chases, explosions, gun-shooting, and sword fights as Foxx uses every tool in his arsenal to kill vampires. All the set pieces look intriguing, and it’s simply because Day Shift prioritizes practical effects for all action scenes; that includes hiring contortionist actors to make the bizarre body movements of the vampires even more realistic. As producer Chad Stahelski tells us in the first look video, he and Perry started their Hollywood career as stuntmen. As such, they both understand the value of practical effects when creating memorable set pieces.
Day Shift is the directorial debut of Perry, who worked as second unit director and stunt coordinator in movies such as Fast & Furious 9, Bloodshot, and the John Wick franchise.
As the first look video teases, Perry is bringing all the John Wick energy to a supernatural setting, amping up the brutality of the action pieces by adding monsters in the mix. Also coming from the John Wick franchise is co-writer Shay Hatten, who worked on John Wick 3: Parabellum and the upcoming Chapter 4 and 5. Joining Hatten as a writer is newcomer Tyler Tice.
Day Shift comes to Netflix this August 12. Check out the first look video below:
Here’s the synopsis for Day Shift:
In ‘Day Shift’, Jamie Foxx stars as a hard working blue collar dad who just wants to provide a good life for his quick-witted daughter, but his mundane San Fernando Valley pool cleaning job is a front for his real source of income: hunting and killing vampires as part of an international Union of vampire hunters.
During Geeked Week, Netflix gave fans a
Andrew Garfield, Bowen Yang and Jennifer Hudson are among the stars set to celebrate Broadway’s biggest night. The three actors have been announced as presenters for the 2022 Tony Awards.
In addition to the three, the full presenter list for the awards ceremony, which honors the best in theater over the last year, includes Broadway stars like Danny Burstein, Len Cariou, Lilli Cooper, Cynthia Erivo, Raúl Esparza Renée Elise Goldsberry, David Alan Grier, Nathan Lane, Telly Leung, Judith Light, Ruthie Ann Miles, Patina Miller, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bebe Neuwirth, Kelli O’Hara, Bernadette Peters, Jeremy Pope, Chita Rivera, Phillipa Soo, Aaron Tveit and Adrienne Warren. In addition, film and television actors such as Utkarsh Ambudkar, Skylar Astin, Zach Braff, Danielle Brooks, Jessica Chastain, Bryan Cranston, Wilson Cruz, Colman Domingo, Anthony Edwards, Laurence Fishburne, Tony Goldwyn, Vanessa Hudgens, Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Lucas, Gaten Matarazzo, Sarah Paulson, Billy Porter, LaTanya Richardson, Tony Shalhoub, Sarah Silverman, George Takei and Patrick Wilson will also present awards during the evening.
“Drag Race” mastermind RuPaul will also be in attendance during the event, and the ceremony will feature an appearance by two of Michael Jackson’s children, Prince and Paris Jackson. A musical about their father’s life, “MJ the Musical,” premiered earlier this year, and was nominated for 10 awards at the ceremony.
The Tony Awards will take place on June 12. Darren Criss and Julianne Hough will host an hour-long pre-show that streams live on Paramount+ starting at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET. The awards begin at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on CBS, with Ariana DeBose hosting the ceremony.
Also in today’s TV news:
Fuse Media has teamed up with LGBTQ advocacy organizations Outright International and Rainbow Railroad for the world television premiere of “Being Bebe,” the entertainment company announced Tuesday. Premiering June 21 at 8 p.m. ET on Fuse and Fuse+, the documentary will become a part of Fuse’s “Fuse Docs” franchise. “Being Bebe” follows the intimate 15-year journey to stardom of drag performer Marshall Ngwa (aka BeBe Zahara Benet), winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 1.
Nick Crowe has been promoted to head of unscripted development at Saloon Media. Filling his old role at the company is Tara Elwood, who joins the company as production executive. Crowe will report to managing director Michael Kot, and focus on leading the development team as it develops its unscripted content slate. Prior to joining Saloon, Crowe worked at History Channel (Canada) and Shaw Media. Elwood will report to SVP of production Betty Orr, and will develop and produce content for the company. Before joining the comapny, she worked with Saloon on projects such as “Mysteries From Above,” “See No Evil” and “Life Below Zero: Canada.”
Robert De Niro and Rosie Perez will appear on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” this Tuesday, while Patrick Schwarzenegger, Tig Notaro and Dustin Nickerson will guest on “The Late Late Show With James Corden.” “Late Night With Seth Meyers” will feature Adam Sandler, Post Malone and James Patterson, while “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will feature Melissa McCarthy, Henry Winkler, Iman Vellani and Marcus King.
Andrew Garfield, Bowen Yang and Jennifer Hudson
Chrisley Knows Best stars Todd and Julie Chrisley got some shocking news Tuesday afternoon.
According to TMZ, the reality TV stars were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion.
Peter Tatantino, the couple’s accountant, was also found guilty on a series of related charges.
The charges include aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns.
A date for sentencing has yet to be scheduled, but the couple remains free on bond.
They face up to 30 years in prison.
Bruce Morris, Todd’s attorney, said that the couple plan to appeal the damning decision.
“We are disappointed in the verdict,” Morris said to TMZ.
Todd and Julie were initially indicted back in 2019, with prosecutors alleging the pair to have submitted fake documents to banks when applying for loans.
Julie also allegedly submitted false credit reports and bank statements when attempting to rent a house in California.
Following the indictment in 2019, Todd alleged in a statement that the couple’s former employee, Mark Braddock, was out to get “revenge” on them.
“He took a bunch of his phony documents to the U.S. Attorney’s office and told them we had committed all kinds of financial crimes, like tax evasion and bank fraud,” Todd said in 2019 via Instagram.
“That got their attention all right, but once we had a chance to explain who he was and what he’d done to us, they realized it was all a bunch of nonsense and they sent him on his way.”
“[He] persuaded a different set of investigators at the U.S. Attorney’s office not only to reopen the case but also to grant him immunity from prosecution for his own crimes and bring charges against us.”
Annalise Peters, Assistant US Attorney, alleged in court that Todd and Julie obtained more than $30 million in loans by fabricating their wealth and earnings.
“They made up documents and they lie through their teeth to get whatever they want, whenever they want it,” Peters said in court, according to InTouchWeekly.
It was also alleged that they continued to hide funds from the IRS after Braddock was no longer associated with them.
Todd and Julie have headlined the USA Network series Chrisley Knows Best since 2014.
The series has spawned several spinoffs, and remains one of the cabler’s strongest performers in key demographics.
It’s unclear what this verdict means for the future of the franchise, but we’re sure USA Network will make a statement in due course.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
Chrisley Knows Best stars Todd and Julie
For Loki, composer Natalie Holt knew that there were two tracks that were essential to the score. After creating themes for Loki and the TVA, Holt found her score easily branching out to create themes for the other characters as well.
Loki takes place after Avengers: Endgame, when the god of mischief escapes and creates a parallel universe that alerts the Time Variance Authority, or TVA. When given a choice between helping the TVA or meeting his demise, Loki sets off on a time-traveling thriller in search of a much greater threat.
Holt worked closely with director Kate Herron on figuring out what instruments and musical styles would work for a character like Loki. When the pandemic shutdown production, she was given more time to experiment which led to a varied score that perfectly captures the chaotic nature of Loki.
DEADLINE: What did director Kate Herron have in mind for the score?
NATALIE HOLT: She wanted it to be more electronic, but it ended up being more orchestral than she thought it would be. We both had this idea of the theremin, for some reason we’d both been listening to that instrument, and we connected on a lot of analog sounds. I had this reference of A Clockwork Orange in my head because I felt a connection between that protagonist and Loki in a weird way. They are both sort of mad, evil villains that you end up feeling sympathy for, and then the composer Wendy Carlos sprung into my mind because the way I heard the classical music in A Clockwork Orange had a huge impact on me when I was in my formative years. So, that was an inspiration and one of my references as well.
DEADLINE: How did you tailor the score to fit a chaotic character like Loki?
HOLT: The thing is, I had a lot of time because it was lockdown and we kind of got shut down. So, I ended up with a year on the project, which is more than you’d usually get on a TV series. So, that just meant we could do things like take the Loki theme and do a kind of jazz version of it, or a Samba version of it, or a rock version of it… We just played around with different genres, to really tailor it to the chaotic nature of the show. It felt like you could really go to town on doing something new for each episode in a way, but still keep the theme consistent so that people come away from the show and hear that title track kick in and just feel like, “that’s it.” I also wanted to have these two pillars of the series, which was this title theme and the TVA, which is Kang’s theme. Those were the two things that I created first, and then all the other character’s themes branched out from there.
DEADLINE: The TVA theme has a lot of those clock ticking sounds, how do you incorporate that into the score?
HOLT: I find it’s a trope. You quite often watch a tense drama scene and you hear a sort of ticking, to kind of enhance the pressure of a scene. I think it’s a device that’s used a fair amount in TV, so I definitely wanted to play around more with that in giving a sense of time but I didn’t want it to be used in a linear way. So, I ran samples of clocks, different types like grandfather clocks and stopwatches, from recordings through an analog tape machine, which gave it a kind of faded quality. Then, because the tape machine was a bit broken, they sort of stopped and started and they it wasn’t a consistent ticking. It was sort of a flavor of time rather than a device of tension as it’s often used.
For Loki, composer Natalie Holt knew that there
AT&T still owned WarnerMedia when it launched HBO Max in 2020, and as a smart play to trick people into checking out Doctor Who and the Studio Ghibli canon and all of those bad DCEU movies that the service launched with, AT&T offered free HBO Max subscriptions to pretty much anyone who was paying them a monthly fee for anything—be it a wireless plan for your phone or an internet plan for your house. But with AT&T offloading WarnerMedia, which has since combined with Discovery to form an exciting new super-company that exists just to kill streaming services, cancel things, and lay people off.
With that new super-company came the natural assumption that the days were numbered for the sweet AT&T/HBO Max deal, since it’s no longer about vertical integration (keeping consumers in the AT&T ecosystem by giving them an AT&T-owned streaming service) but simply… AT&T doing a nice thing for people and for a company it no longer owns. That’s not how businesses work, not in Uncle Sam’s America! Nobody gets anything for free unless its part of a cross-promotional marketing scheme!
And now, sure enough, AT&T has killed the HBO Max bundle for one of its wireless plans. As noted by Variety, this seems to have only impacted the “highest-tier unlimited wireless plan,” and apparently only new customers at that, but it does prove that this is something that’s now on the table for AT&T going forward.
The silver lining for current AT&T subscribers wary about losing their HBO Max access is that the company is quietly doing this as part of rebranding its top unlimited plan, which was called Unlimited Elite but is now Unlimited Premium. That means it technically has yet to remove the HBO Max bundle from any tier, it’s just getting rid of a wireless plan that had the HBO Max bundle.
AT&TPhoto: CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty ImagesAT&T still
Micky’s Summer Resort is an indie farce about a summer spent at a nudist (er, “naturist,” rather) resort by a Catholic teenager named Micky (Michael Soulema). Micky’s need for income, and his parent’s experience with the lifestyle, lead him to take a job as a screener for the resort. His role is to assess applicants to filter out anyone who’s going to be creepy or inappropriate. Micky seems a normal enough boy until the revelation of a supernatural power that makes him uniquely qualified to eliminate the unwelcome influences at the resort. However, thoughts of romance distract Micky from his duties as he winds up falling for a girl his age whose family is associated with the resort.
Micky’s supernatural ability is reminiscent of the supernatural elements of Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich. Using his special gifts leads to dramatic conflict, and Micky finds himself in several difficult situations, including having to deal with the secret source of his powers. In the middle of his social and mystical intrigue, he learns that the resort is planning to generate sales by hosting a traditional beauty pageant featuring nude women in a competition for their looks. Suffice to say, there is a lot going on this summer for the young man.
“…about a summer spent at a nudist resort by a Catholic teenager named Micky…”
Casual, non-sexual nudity is featured throughout Micky’s Summer Resort, though not, thankfully, of the underage characters. The film opens with a disclaimer assuring the viewer that no underage actors were exposed to nudity, either. Director-writer Tony T.L. Young has embarked on an ambitious project here, and he fights a war on many fronts. He seems to be trying to normalize the idea of public nudity but in the context of a sex farce like American Pie or Porky’s.
The pace and tone of the dialogue and production quality feel like porn, or perhaps more like old late-night cable channel soft porn. But again, there’s almost no sex. There is, however, juvenile humor that goes for the gross-out, the occasional fat joke, and the questionable wisdom of presenting a woman’s beauty pageant at a nude resort. If the goal is to normalize social nudity by representing all ages and body types, the contest probably sends the wrong message. That doesn’t keep the film from being fun and funny, though.
That said, this is supposed to be light-hearted fun, and nothing here should be taken too seriously. The acting is solid. While the narrative is scattered to the point that the script is almost incidental, Soulema’s performance as Micky is lively enough to keep the viewer engaged throughout. With no negative judgment whatsoever, it’s safe to say that if you’re into voyeurism presented as a semi-wholesome object lesson romp about nudity, then Micky’s Summer Resort will amuse you.
Micky’s Summer Resort is an indie farce
The devastated wife of a British journalist who has gone missing in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest has desperately pleaded for ‘urgent actions’, adding ‘every second counts.’
Dom Phillips, a contributor for The Guardian, disappeared Sunday morning in the Brazilian Javari region while researching a book in an area notorious for illegal mining and drug trafficking, along with Indigenous expert Bruno Araújo Pereira.
Locals had said the pair had faced ‘threats’ before their disappearance and last night, two fishermen were arrested in connection with the case and later released without explanation.
Veteran foreign correspondent Dom Phillips is missing in the remote Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Pictured in 2019 in Roraima State
The journalist disappeared Sunday morning in the Brazilian Javari region while researching a book
The Javari region is an area notorious for illegal mining and drug trafficking, and the pair had reportedly faced threats before their disappearance
Dom’s wife Alessandra Sampaio, who lives with him in the north-eastern Brazilian city of Salvador, said in a statement, according to The Guardian: ‘Brazilian authorities, our families are in despair. Please answer the urgency of the moment with urgent actions.
‘As I make this appeal they have been missing for more than 30 hours… in the forest every second counts, every second could be the difference between life and death.
‘All I can do is pray that Dom and Bruno are well, somewhere, and unable to continue with their journey because of some mechanical problem, and that all this will end up being just another story in these full lives of theirs.’
Dom, who has been reporting on Brazil for 15 years for several media outlets, was last seen with Bruno in the early hours of Sunday when they were expected to make a two-hour boat trip to Atalaia do Norte, but they never arrived.
The Itaquai River runs through the Vale do Javari region in Amazonas state, near the border with Peru
Dom and Bruno were last seen in the early hours of Sunday when they were expected to make a two-hour boat trip to Atalaia do Norte
Bruno has spent years working to protect the dozens of local tribes who live in the remote rainforest and he regularly carries a gun with him.
Yesterday, security forces and members of Funai, an Indigenous agency, scoured a stretch of river near Atalaia do Norte.
A naval search team is expected to join the search for the pair who entered the reserve last week.
The Union of Indigenous Organizations of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA) and the Observatory for the Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI) said in a statement the men had ‘received threats in the field the week they disappeared’.
Their boat was new and had 70 litres of gasoline, more than enough for the trip, and they were using satellite communication
Bruno has regularly received threats from loggers and miners trying to invade isolated indigenous groups’ land
Before their disappearance, they had stopped in the community of Sao Rafael where Bruno had arranged a meeting with a local tribe leader to discuss patrols to fight the ‘intense invasions’ on their lands.
But the leader did not arrive and the men decided to continue on their journey towards Atalaia do Norte.
Bruno has regularly received threats from loggers and miners trying to invade isolated indigenous groups’ land.
Their boat was new and had 70 litres of gasoline, more than enough for the trip, and they were using satellite communication.
Dom’s sister Sian Phillips said last night: ‘We knew it was a dangerous place but Dom really believed it’s possible to safeguard the nature and the livelihood of the Indigenous people.
The Javari is thought to be home to the biggest concentration of uncontacted people in the world
‘We are really worried about him and urge the authorities in Brazil to do all they can to search the routes he was following. If anyone can help scale up resources for the search that would be great because time is crucial.
‘We love our brother and want him and his Brazilian guide found … every minute counts.’
The Javari is thought to be home to the biggest concentration of uncontacted people in the world, and Dom travelled there with Bruno in 2018.
The region has experienced repeated shootouts between hunters, fishermen and official security agents, who have a permanent base in the area.
The Guardian said in a statement it was ‘very concerned’ about Phillips, whose work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other leading media.
‘We condemn all attacks and violence against journalists and media workers. We are hopeful that Dom and those he was traveling with are safe and will be found soon,’ it said.
The devastated wife of a British journalist
Broadway took a pre-Tony Awards early-summer dip at the box office last week, slipping 11% from the previous week to gross a total $29,555,352 for 31 productions. Attendance was off about 10% to 230,894.
While most of the shows reported drops, the overall figure also reflects four fewer productions than the previous week’s roster, with Birthday Candles, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Skin of Our Teeth having closed and Mr. Saturday Night, starring Billy Crystal, on a planned hiatus for the week.
Overall, attendance was at about 81% of capacity. Shows that filled more than 90% of their seats were Aladdin, Hadestown, Hamilton, MJ, Chicago, Moulin Rouge!, Plaza Suite, Six, Take Me Out, The Book of Mormon, The Lion King, The Music Man and Wicked. A Strange Loop came close at 89%.
Productions dropping below the 70% capacity mark were Beetlejuice (grossing $1,019,502), Come From Away ($461,760), Company ($582,979), Girl From The North Country ($308,134), The Minutes ($272,498) and Paradise Square ($229,337), among others, with Hangmen ($257,199) and POTUS ($430,900) slipping below the 50% mark. Tina and Dear Evan Hansen, which today announced their closings, were at 54% and 59% of their capacities, grossing $747,931 and $508,455, respectively.
In keeping with the downward trend, Funny Girl was off by $83,588 from the previous week, grossing $1,178,027 with attendance at 88% of capacity (the figures reflect the week before star Beanie Feldstein announced that she tested positive for Covid and would miss an as-yet-undetermined number of performances).
In its final week at the Booth, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf took in $300,666, a boost of $74,360 from the previous week. Attendance was at 70% capacity.
Average ticket price for the 31 shows was $128, in keeping with recent trends. Season-to-date average is about $129.
Season to date, Broadway has grossed $62,902,656, with total attendance of 488,104 at about 82% of capacity.
The 31 productions reporting figures on Broadway last week were Aladdin; American Buffalo; Beetlejuice; The Book of Mormon; Chicago; Come From Away; Company; Dear Evan Hansen; for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf; Funny Girl; Girl From The North Country; Hadestown; Hamilton; Hangmen; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; How I Learned To Drive; The Lion King; MJ; The Minutes; Moulin Rouge!; Mr. Saturday Night; The Music Man; Paradise Square; The Phantom of the Opera; Plaza Suite; POTUS; Six; A Strange Loop; Take Me Out; Tina; and Wicked.
All figures courtesy of the Broadway League.
Broadway took a pre-Tony Awards early-summer dip
The European Union on Tuesday reached an agreement that will require all new smartphones, tablets and laptops to use a common charger by 2026.
The policy is an attempt to address the well-known consumer frustration of having a drawer full of chargers — some for Apple devices, others for portable speakers or hand-held gaming systems. It brings an unusual level of involvement by a government regulator into product design decisions.
Policymakers said the move would cut down on electronic waste. But the new law had been opposed by companies including Apple, which said it would prevent new charging technologies from developing. Under the law, a European standards body will be in charge of considering future charger designs for all devices.
By 2024, all new mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, hand-held video game devices, headphones, portable speakers, keyboards, mice, earbuds and other portable devices will need USB-C charging ports, the European Commission announced. By 2026, the law will apply to laptops.
Companies will also be required to sell devices without a charger to reduce the number of chargers in circulation. The European Commission, the executive body of the 27-nation bloc, said discarded and unused chargers produced 11,000 tons of waste each year.
“A common charger is common sense for the many electronic devices on our daily lives,” Thierry Breton, the European commissioner who helped negotiate the deal, said in a statement.
The European Union on Tuesday reached an
“America is a capitalistic society,” says civil rights attorney Ben Crump in the new trailer for Netflix’s portrait of his life, Civil. “The one thing that America understands is money.”
That statement undergirds Crump’s mission as expressed in the trailer: “If you can make them pay higher values, they will stop killing Black people. It will be an impediment.”
Civil follows a year in Crump’s life as he takes on civil cases for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Andre Hill, whose deaths sparked protests across the U.S. around race, fairness, economic justice and police brutality.
The Netflix film follows the life of the maverick civil rights attorney from childhood, to marriage to father, and the process by which he became the man he is today.
Civil also underscores the other issues Crump is passionate about, including environmental justice and “banking while Black.”
Award-winning filmmaker Nadia Hallgren (Becoming: Michelle Obama) directs the documentary, which is produced by Barris, Roger Ross Williams, Lauren Cioffi and Nadia Hallgren and executive produced by Erynn Sampson, Matthew Carnahan and Geoff Martz.
Civil will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, June 12 and in select theaters on June 17. It will be released globally on Netflix June 19.
“America is a capitalistic society,” says civil
SPOILERS AHEAD! If you did not watch the season finale of HBO’s Westworld, read no further. A Westworld host will be happy to assist you and put you back on the train. On behalf of Delos, Inc., we hope you’ve enjoyed your stay and that you will return soon. Follow this link to return home.
NOW THEN…
There were a lot of payoff moments in Sunday’s Westworld season finale, “The Bicameral Mind.” For once, crazy fan theories were right – and no so crazy after all. The Man in Black is William. Dolores was the key to the various timelines and she is also Wyatt. Bernard/Arnold (Let’s call him “Bernarnold”) was brought back to life. (“Life” being a concept that is relative and explored on the show.) The final two episodes of Westworld had more payoffs than a whole season of Lost. And, really, if the show ended now, nobody would feel like there were many loose ends.
Viewers had plenty of feelings about the show, so we checked in with Canvs, which analyzes tweets about media and measures the emotional reactions (ERs). First off, here’s the bar graph that shows the top ERs about the show as it aired from 9 pm – 10:30 pm ET:
Source: CANVS
So, lots of love here. But let’s first dig into the Crazy. Because this was CA-RA-ZEE. The ending was wild. “Host” android Dolores shot Westworld’s co-founder (played by Anthony Hopkins) in the head. Twitterers went into shock:
Omg…westworld was crazy
— Mr. 2:22 (@KallMeTank) December 5, 2016
DAMN. That was just insane. #Westworld
— Stewart Moncure (@rsmon77) December 5, 2016
#WestworldFinale Mind blown. Quite literally. Thank you @HBO wow.
— Ernie Mourelo (@ernie_mourelo) December 5, 2016
Hopefully @ernie_mourelo means his mind was blown figuratively, but it was certainly a jarring ending that people are still parsing today. Not everyone was pleased:
Ok, pointless #Westworld
— Gretchen H. (@gretchi) December 5, 2016
OK Westworld is over and in conclusion that was dumb.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) December 5, 2016
But the top emotional reaction for the show was love. That peaked at the show’s end:
Westworld, thank you for an absolutely amazing season
— Cory (@just_CMW) December 5, 2016
#Westworld season finale was one of the best season finales of any show, ever. Well played @HBO well played.
— Rebecca L Stakem (@Becca_staykm) December 5, 2016
Damn, #Westworld, not only did you tie up all the story threads but you set the stage for one hell of a second season. Very impressed.
— Matt Serafini (@MattFini) December 5, 2016
One other note: Stars Evan Rachel Wood and Sir Anthony Hopkins had a little Mutual Respect Society meeting going on Twitter:
.@evanrachelwood you have brought Delores to life. You are spectacular. #Westworld
— Anthony Hopkins (@AnthonyHopkins) December 5, 2016
Westworld fans are going to have to wait a while for season two. HBO’s programming president said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that the next season may not arrive until 2018.
That should give you plenty of time to think about what that Samurai World is all about…
SPOILERS AHEAD! If you did not watch
The Lincoln Lawyer has parked his Lincoln on the small screen.
After Matthew McConaughey drove around in a Lincoln defending his clients, The Lincoln Lawyer is back, but on TV, with a different face, and a different case. The Lincoln Lawyer is a legal thriller series based on Michael Connelly’s book The Brass Verdict.
Netflix
The series follows the titular character — an LA defense attorney who becomes addicted to OxyContin after a terrible surfing accident — who, after a series of unfortunate events, finds himself in charge of a high-profile trial. He is supposed to defend a video game magnate who is accused of murdering his wife and her boyfriend.
Let me introduce you to the cast and where you might know them from:
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller
Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for Netflix
Where have you seen him: From Dusk till Dawn: The Series, Greyhound, Sweet Girl, The Magnificent Seven, Cake, and Bless Me, Ultima.
Neve Campbell as Maggie McPherson
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images
Where have you seen her: Party of Five, The Craft, Scream franchise, Wild Things, Drowning Mona, Panic, When Will I Be Loved, The Philanthropist, House of Cards, and Skyscraper.
Krista Warner as Hayley Haller
Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for Netflix
Where have you seen her: Priorities.
Becki Newton as Lorna Crain
Walter Mcbride / Getty Images
Where have you seen her: Ugly Betty, August Rush, The Goodwin Games, Weird Loners, and How I Met Your Mother.
Jazz Raycole as Izzy Letts
Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images
Where have you seen her: The Quad, I Ship It, The Soul Man, and Jericho.
Angus Sampson
Syfy / NBCU Photo Bank / NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Where have you seen him: Insidious film series, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Mule, Fargo, and Winchester.
Christopher Gorham as Trevor Elliott
Jesse Grant / Getty Images for GBK Brand Bar
Where have you seen him: Insatiable, Popular, Odyssey 5, Felicity, Jake 2.0, The Magicians, Medical Investigation, Out of Practice, Harper’s Island, Ugly Betty, Covert Affairs, and Once Upon a Time.
Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine as Detective Raymond Griggs
Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for Netflix
Where have you seen him: Bosch, The Chi, The Newsroom, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Heroes.
Jamie McShane as Detective Lee Lankford
Cbs Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images
Where have you seen him: Sons of Anarchy, Southland, Bloodline, Thor, and The Avengers.
LisaGay Hamilton as Judge Mary Holde
Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic for HBO
Where have you seen her: The Dropout, The Practice, Men of A Certain Age, House of Cards, Chance, The First, 12 Monkeys, Vice, The Soloist, and Winning Time.
Reggie Lee as Angelo Soto
Araya Doheny / Getty Images
Where have you seen him: Prison Break, Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, The Fast and the Furious, The Dark Knight Rises, Sweet Girl, and Grimm.
Carlos Bernard as Robert Cardone
Bravo / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Where have you seen him: The Young and the Restless, Scoundrels, Dallas, CSI: Miami, and 24.
Elliott Gould as Legal Siegal
Jean-jacques Lapeyronnie / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Where have you seen him: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, M*A*S*H, The Long Goodbye, California Split, A Bridge Too Far, American History X, The Ocean’s film franchise, Contagion, and Ruby Sparks.
Kim Hawthorne as Janelle Simmons
Michael Graziadei as Jeff Golantz
Cbs Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images
Where have you seen him: American Horror Story: Murder House, The Secret Circle, True Detective, The Young and the Restless, 90210, and The Rookie.
The Lincoln Lawyer has parked his Lincoln
“Stranger Things 4” is “Running Up That Hill” to top Netflix’s viewership records for the second week in a row.
During the streamer’s May 30-June 5 week, Season 4 of the hit sci-fi series became the most-watched season of an English-language show in a single week on Netflix (with 335.01 million hours viewed in the last seven days), hit the No. 1 spot on the Top 10 list in 91 countries (a first for an English-language series) and became the first TV show to jump into the Top 3 Most Popular List in less than two weeks since its premiere — behind “Bridgerton’s” two seasons — with 621.8 million hours viewed.
Last week, “Stranger Things” Volume 4 Part 1 beat out “Bridgerton’s” sophomore season to have the biggest premiere weekend for an English-language Netflix series, with a record 286.79 million hours viewed globally. The show’s success is also reflected in renewed fervor for Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” which reentered the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time in its near-four-decade history following its use as a key plot element.
Fans of the Hawkins crew also rewatched previous seasons in droves, with 75.08, 58.27 and 47.42 million hours viewed, respectively, for Seasons 1-3. “The Lincoln Lawyer” followed behind, in the fifth slot, with 42.53 million hours viewed. “Ozark” Season 4 claimed the seventh spot, with “Bridgerton” Season 2 going strong at No. 9.
The fourth season of “Stranger Things” was split into two installments, the latter of which will premiere with two feature-length episodes July 1.
“Stranger Things 4” is “Running Up That
Rooted in fascinating real-life events, the 1970-set drama I’m Charlie Walker is several things at once, including a wasted showcase for the considerable charisma of Mike Colter, and definitely a lesson on the perils of a biographical movie’s subject also serving as a producer on the project. Most of all, though, it is a bewildering misfire which roundly illustrates the differences between a historically under-told story which arguably should be amplified and a movie that actually does a good job of accomplishing that task.
The end result, lacking in just about every measure, leaves one actively vexed more than merely unsatisfied—angry both over what the film could have been, and the reality of the mess that it is. The latter element is worth foregrounding a bit more, because I’m Charlie Walker, written and directed by Patrick Gilles, opens with a title card which reads, “Based on a true story.” It closes, however, with a half dozen codas at the top of its end credits, the very first of which states, “All characters and events in this film, even those based on real individuals, are completely fictional.” The confounding nature of those contradictory claims encapsulates the unique frustrations of this movie, singular in its commingled shortcomings and self-negation.
This much is true: In January 1971, two oil tankers collided in San Francisco Bay, resulting in a spill of more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil. This disaster outraged the city’s citizens, and would eventually lead to the formation of International Bird Rescue and other environmental advocacy nonprofit groups. The responsible companies, fictionalized here as Tower Oil, loosened their purse strings for clean-up assistance, which in turn opened up lucrative freelance work for truckers who could haul away contaminated sand.
It is against this backdrop that Charlie Walker (Colter), who shares three young daughters with wife Ann (Safiya Fredericks), takes a swing at occupational self-betterment. Fed up with the bigotry freezing him out from obtaining local contracts, Walker exercises his entrepreneurial instinct and hustles to put himself in position to secure an assignment. And in the wake of the disaster, Tower Oil’s president, Mr. Bennett (Dylan Baker), and his second-in-command Mr. Sharpe (Mark Leslie Ford), don’t seem overly focused on race.
Grudgingly bequeathed Stinson Beach, an area certain contractors deem too small, Walker makes nice with hippie volunteers, and comes up with the ingenious idea to deploy unused paddle-scrapers to skim oil from the top of water before it fully reaches the beach. As his public profile grows in stature with success compared to his white peers, though, so too does Walker’s exposure to those who would seek to undercut or take advantage of him, and not remunerate him at the agreed-upon rate.
One sign of the movie’s failure can be found in its scant 79-minute running time, which feels far less like a model of economy than just a fundamental confirmation of unrealized storytelling prowess. Brevity can certainly be a virtue, but I’m Charlie Walker’s premise is a rich, complex tale told in both hacked-down and hackneyed fashion.
Colter cuts a generally appealing figure, and keeps trying to impress the force of his likable personality on the movie. He’s most matched in watchability by Baker, a consummate professional who understands the assignment of his character’s two-faced duplicitousness. (Monica Barbaro, fresh off Top Gun: Maverick, also does a good job in a small but important two-scene role.) Colter is consistently let down, however, by both other onscreen collaborators as well as the script.
Walker is a “family man” whose family is only used as a prop in three scenes (he necessarily moves away from them to spearhead the oil clean-up, but their integration is fumbled), and Gilles meanwhile paints his supporting characters with such broad strokes as to render them risible, unknowable, or some combination of the two. Only in an eight-minute stretch near its conclusion does the movie really crackle with any multi-layered energy and sophistication.
This penultimate segment in large part attempts to reframe I’m Charlie Walker as essentially a social-justice heist film, and its subject as a type of righteous Danny Ocean, striking a mighty blow against institutional racism. Making his play with a wide smile, Walker delivers a monologue laying into Bennett’s privilege, pointedly telling him, “People like you inherit your lives, your wealth, your good fortune—you grew up knowing your only job is not to fuck up what generations before you had.”
It’s a nice, cathartic moment—wonderfully delivered by Colter—which finally reveals the (potential) full dynamic range of this character. The problem is there is no other meat of this type on the bone, narratively speaking. The act itself isn’t unexpected, or presented as a wild twist; it’s been seeded, and viewers know Walker to be taking measures to protect his interests. But while he is shown throughout the movie to be resourceful and intelligent, Gilles lacks either the foresight or skill to show Walker as crafty and multi-dimensional as he truly is. Neither does the movie, apart from a laughable throwaway line (“We lose this house in February if you don’t find work”), bother to fully emotionally invest in Walker’s socioeconomic pain in a way which would elevate its domestic stakes.
These facts, taken in sum with some information from those aforementioned codas (notably, that Walker was convicted of 23 felonies for violating laws related to city contract bids, and served several years in prison in the 1980s, even though 17 of those charges were later reversed on appeal), combine to create the distinct impression of “Charlie Walker” as both a phantom and a fraud—a character untethered to any particular reality, either genuine or fictionally constructed. Gilles inadvertently confirms this through sporadic voiceover narration from the perspective of Ann, who isn’t present for the overwhelming majority of the events shown.
The low-budget film’s technical package is scarcely any better. Cinematographer Bill Holshevnikoff perhaps deserves a bit of a pass for flat compositions, but Gilles, whose only other feature experience is a shared writing and directing credit on the 2011 curio Olive, shows little to no visual imagination, nor flair for staging. He also indulges an enormously wrongheaded score by Adam Lindquist, the nadir of which comes during a scene in which the ostensible perils of an interrupted home break-in are undercut by music which sounds like it’s from an insurance commercial.
I’m Charlie Walker is obviously a passion project of sorts, and a movie with considerable local ties to the community in which it is set (there’s even a cameo from former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who appears as a chatty cab driver). Those qualities count for something in independent film, but they do not at all translate to onscreen success when those telling the story haven’t even figured out what tale they’re actually telling beyond that of mere representation of a historically marginalized group.
(from left) Safiya Fredericks and Mike Colter
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Boys Season 3, Episode 3! Read at your own risk!]
Dearly beloved The Boys fans, we are gathered here to pay tribute to a dear friend who left us too soon. Timothy the Octopus, a treasured friend of The Deep (Chace Crawford), was sacrificed in Season 3, Episode 3, “Barbary Coast,” so that The Deep could reclaim a spot in The Seven.
We didn’t get a lot of time to get to know Timothy — just two scenes — but he left a big impact for such a small cephalopod. He was there during some of The Deep’s most intimate moments, specifically that time The Deep was having sex with his wife and Timothy got himself off against the aquarium glass. We learned then that he was a generous lover, one who would be willing to use all of his arms to help his partner achieve pleasure. What a rare animal, indeed.
“He was very articulate. He was as good of a friend as you could have, 60-feet below the surface,” Crawford said of his departed scene partner. “He was a good listener. We’d have long chats about our different upbringings because we were very different creatures.”
Despite sharing as personal a bond as two could share, Timothy ultimately died so that The Deep could prove himself to Homelander (Antony Starr). He was force-fed to The Deep during a seafood feast in Vought Tower, even after pleading for his life and revealing he had several unnamed children back in the tank.
“RIP Timothy,” added Anthony Starr, whose character Homelander was actually responsible for Timothy’s untimely death. “Struck down before your time, more children without a father… I bet he tasted delicious.”
According to Crawford, he did not, in fact, taste delicious.
“His needs were so simple. All he wanted was to masturbate while The Deep was having sex and didn’t deserve the fate of being eaten by the object of his affection,” executive producer Eric Kripke said so eloquently. “Love can be cruel sometimes.”
Perhaps it is Claudia Doumit, who plays Victoria Neuman in the series, who put it best. “Timothy, you only had eight tentacles, but we wish you had nine lives.”
We miss you, Timothy. Swim well in that big ocean in the sky.
The Boys
Amazon
The first three episodes of The Boys Season 3 are now available on Prime Video, with new episodes released every Friday.
(Disclosure: Links to retailers may earn money to support our work.)
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for The
Irish-born actor Liam Neeson is celebrating his 70th birthday, and with it, over five decades of memorable and outstanding performances in film and television.
A classically trained theater actor, he made his way through the early days of his career with minor roles in critically acclaimed films such as “The Mission” (1986) and “Husbands and Wives” (1992). But his big break came when he took on the role of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s best picture winner “Schindler’s List” (1993). Neeson was nominated for best actor for his turn as the German industrialist that saved over 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, but lost out to Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia.”
Since then, he’s taken on notable roles in dramas such as “Nell” (1994) opposite Jodie Foster and “Michael Collins” (1996), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for lead actor in a drama. He has also presented other awards-worthy performances that have gone unnoticed, such as the grieving father who helps his son get the girl in “Love Actually” (2003) and the controversial sexologist in “Kinsey” (2004).
An unadulterated movie star, he’s been part of the most significant action blockbusters and franchises over the last 25 years.
Starting with Sam Raimi’s cult-classic “Darkman” (1990), Neeson has played Qui-Gon Jinn, who identifies as a young Darth Vader in George Lucas’ first prequel film “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” (1999) and the villainous Ra’s al Ghul in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (2005), However, one of his best known — and most quotable — roles is when he shared his “particular set of skills” in the “Taken” franchise, which spawned two sequels and grossed nearly $1 billion collectively worldwide.
Neeson has elevated the action genre in various ways, exploring new realms of the cinematic landscape as a sharpshooter-turned-wolf fighter in “The Grey” (2012) and as a husband that does some evil deeds and resents the Blackness of his wife in “Widows” (2018).
With two Tony nominations for best actor in a play — “Anna Christie” in 1993 and “The Crucible” in 2002 — there’s not much he cannot do. As he conquers role after role in Hollywood, his Oscar moment will hopefully be somewhere on the horizon.
Variety is ranking Neeson’s 10 best film performances below.
Honorable mentions: “Rob Roy” (1995), “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (2005), “The LEGO Movie” (2014), “A Monster Calls” (2016)
Irish-born actor Liam Neeson is celebrating his
Made in America music festival will return to Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway for Labor Day weekend on September 3 and 4. Tyler, the Creator and Bad Bunny have been tapped to headline the two-day event.
The festival will host performances from Burna Boy, Jazmine Sullivan, Snoh Aalegra, Pusha T, Lil Tjay, Tate McRae, Babyface Ray, Victoria Monét, Toro y Moi, Key Glock, and more. Lil Uzi Vert and Kodak Black are also scheduled to perform.
Standard and VIP 2-day passes for Made in America are available to purchase via the official festival website.
The Roc Nation-produced festival made its post-pandemic return last year with headlining sets from Justin Bieber and Lil Baby with additional appearances from Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion. They joined a slate of past performers which includes Rihanna, Cardi B, The Weeknd, and more.
Since its debut in 2012, Made in America has generated over $150 million for the city of Philadelphia while drawing crowds of 50,000 attendees per day.
Made in America music festival will return
Applications for Film Independent’s Fast Track film financing market are now open. The non-Member deadline to apply is June 7, while the Film Independent Member Extended Deadline in June 21. NOTE: the following blog originally ran last year.
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There are a lot of clichés about how to succeed in Hollywood. Among them: the idea that it’s all about who you know—as if Entertainment is somehow the only workforce sector where a robust professional network might come in handy. And while there’s truth to the cliché, “who you know,” in this context, does not mean “a big-time producer whose car I once parked” or “an A-list celebrity whose office is on the same lot where I intern.”
“Who you know” means who you actually know. In other words, people you’ve met in an appropriate setting, to whom you are formally introduced to, by a trusted source, as an accomplished creative peer. The catch? These introductions can be difficult to come by. Unless of course you’re one of the 10-15 projects participating in Film Independent’s Fast Track film financing marketplace (think speed dating, but for filmmakers!)
Designed to connect producer-director teams, both fiction and nonfiction, with industry leaders, the yearly marketplace (to be virtual this year) consists of round robin meetings with top film executives, agents, managers, distributors, granting orgs and production companies. So! With applications now open, we thought it would be fun to revisit 10 recent Fast Track success stories from yesteryear…
Director: Chloé Zhao
Producers: Mollye Asher, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Angela C. Lee, Forest Whitaker, Chloé Zhao
Starring: John Reddy, Jashaun St. John, Irene Bedard, Taysha Fuller
Where to watch: The Citerion Channel, Kanopy, Hoopla
Genre: Drama
What critics say: From Jordan Hoffman’s review in The Guardian: “As an ethnographic work, it is extraordinary, facing stereotypes about life on the reservation head-on, exploring the crippling effects of alcoholism and a non-existent economy with a delicate hand. As drama, the plot is wafer thin—an excuse to stick with our main characters as they take stock of their surroundings. Luckily, the restrained performances and luscious location photography are enough to make this a film worth exploring.” The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards, with Zhoa (The Rider, The Eternal) nominated for the Someone to Watch Award, along with nominations for honors at film festivals worldwide.
Directors: Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy
Producer: Drew P. Houpt, Alex Scharfman
Starring: Morgan Saylor, Margo Martindale, Sophie Lowe, June Squibb
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
Genre: Neo-noir
What critics say: From Karyn James’ review, The Hollywood Reporter: “This expertly crafted little New England noir has droll dialogue, a female empowerment theme and a sly use of crime elements. A harpoon through the neck might not be the obvious way to kill somebody, but Easter Cove is a fishing town and people use what’s at hand… Krudy and Cole adroitly play with genre elements, walking the line between dry wit and genuine suspense. They’re knowing about the tropes they use, including a missing knife that could be used as evidence, and the dilemma of fitting a corpse into a cooler that’s just a little too small. And while the directors wink at these tricks, the actors stay perfectly in tune with the serious suspense plot.” Blow the Man Down was nominated for Best First Screenplay at the 2020 Spirit Awards.
Director: Bing Liu
Producers: Bing Liu, Diane Moy Quon
Featuring: Bing Liu, Zack Mulligan, Keire Johnson
Where to watch: Hulu
Genre: Coming-of-age documentary
What critics say: From Michael Phillips’ review, The Chicago Tribune: Much of “Minding the Gap” is painful to witness, but as past and present intersect and recombine and Liu’s wealth of footage coalesces, the finished film becomes a cautiously hopeful and even cathartic experience. It’s fully responsive as cinema. Liu, who served as editor along with Josh Altman, deploys the lyric skateboarding interludes just often enough to keep everything flowing. Akin to Michael Apted’s 7 Up series, or Richard Linklater’s narrative feature “Boyhood,” at one point we see Zack hurtle through a few formative years in a lovely video montage. Life is beautiful, and cruel, and this film is a dialectic between the harshness and the beauty.” Nominated for a 2019 Spirit Award for Best Documentary, Liu won that year’s Truer Than Fiction award.
Director: Hikari
Producers: Hikari, Shin Yamaguchi
Starring: Mei Kayama, Shunsuke Daito, Misuzu Kanno, Haruka Imou
Where to watch: Playstation One, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu
Genre: Drama
Why critics say: From Lisa Kennedy’s review, Variety: “The Japanese film 37 Seconds deceptively delicate and quietly tough. Not unlike its protagonist. We first glimpse Yuma as she rides a crowded commuter train in Tokyo. From the camera’s angle, you might think she’s a kid. Her face is tentative, youthful. She’s shorter than the people around her because she’s in a wheelchair. She has cerebral palsy and she has been the sole concern of her mother since her father left, shortly after her birth. Writer-director Hikari’s first feature won two prizes in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival last February, followed by an international festival run. Americans can find it on Netflix. Well-paced, artfully shot and edited, “37 Seconds” mixes anime and illustration with live-action to tell the story of the 23-year-old aspiring artist seeking liberation.”
Director: Tina Brown, Dyana Winkler
Producers: Tina Brown, Dyana Winkler
Where to watch: HBO Max
Genre: Sports & culture documentary
What critics say: From Jason Bailey’s review, The Village Voice: “Directors Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown helm this affectionate tribute to roller-rink culture and, more specifically, the African-American skate community, which gathers on “adult nights” (coded language, we’re told, for “black night”) that prove to be raucous celebrations of skating, dancing, and style. But this is a culture that’s disappearing, with skating rinks closing across the country, thanks to declining interest and increasing land values. So the mostly joyful picture is permeated by a sense of decline—that it’s documenting a phenomenon that may not be with us much longer. As such, it’s full of fascinating stories and inside-baseball jargon (“slippery wheels,” “JB style,” throws, snapping, slow-walking), all of which is wittily assembled to capture the movement and athleticism on the floor. Charming, informative, and a little heartbreaking.”
Director: Lana Wilson
Featuring: Ittetsu Nemoto
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
Genre: Spiritual documentary
What critics say: From Robert Abele’s review, The Los Angeles Times: “A hard-drinking bad boy turned soft-spoken Buddhist priest, [suicide prevention counselor] Ittetsuo Nemoto operates out of a temple in the countryside, where his wife frets about his client load, his toddler son runs around freely, and those in need of counseling come for his signature workshop. Wilson’s film is a quietly observant portrait of the toll Nemoto’s work has on someone who finds himself going through his own big questions about life. Nemoto is beginning to reconsider how much time he spends with his troubled clients at the expense of his family and self. Unfailingly sensitive about issues of selflessness and suffering, The Departure is in a way its own work of meditation, on the pressures of living up to the turbulent promise of life’s expected length.”
Director: Nijla Mu’min
Producers: Maya Emelle, Arielle Saturne, Avril Z. Speaks
Starring: Simone Missick, Zoe Renee, Hisham Tawfiq, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
Where to watch: Amazon Prime
Genre: Drama
What critics say: From Monica Castillo’s review, RogerEbert.com: “Jinn holds several beautiful elements, especially in its central mother-daughter story. Theirs is a fraught relationship, and even though the audience spends only 92 minutes with them, there’s a deep sense of their history, ups and downs, resentments and previous fights. With faith in the mix of generational conflict, the stakes feel higher—especially when they’re fighting in the car, stuck with anger and exasperation between them. Jade does not want to lose her good standing in this new community where she feels welcome, and Summer’s a extroverted spirit who didn’t sign up for the duties of religious life. Rebellion almost seems inevitable.”
Director: Kirill Mikhanovsky
Producers: Val Abel, Michael Manasseri, Kirill Mikhanovsky, George Rush, Sergey Shtern
Starring: Chris Galust, Lauren “Lolo” Spencer, Maxim Stoyanov
Where to watch: Rental (all platforms)
Genre: Comedy
What critics say: From Vikram Murthi’s review, The AV Club: “Give Me Liberty functions as one of the most resonant portrayals of allyship… Vic instinctually understands that many people literally depend on him everyday, and Mikhanovsky and Austen frequently convey the sheer nobility of driving people places they couldn’t otherwise get to themselves. This belief extends to the film’s production as well, which features a non-professional cast and a community of real people with disabilities, who are depicted with matter-of-fact respect instead of pious pity. Plus, Give Me Liberty indirectly captures a fractured national mood better than didactic agitprop ever could, e.g., a police protest becoming an arena for exorcising oppression and an impromptu communal gathering, with ‘Our streets!’ doubling as an affirmation that black and immigrant lives do matter, even if it’s for different reasons.” The film won the John Cassavetes Award at the 2020 Spirit Awards.
Directors: Sarita Khurana, Smriti Mundhra
Where to watch: Rental (all platforms)
Genre: Social & cultural documentary
What critics say: From Nick Schager’s review, Variety: “In A Suitable Girl— shot over three years—marriage is presented as a form of slavery, with a woman forced to abandon her home to assume a deferential position in her husband’s residence. Directors Khurana and Mundhra editorialize their position not through narration or sound bites but through revealing closeups of each of their three subjects. In those images, especially at Ritu and Dipti’s weddings (which are set to a mournful piano), the sorrowful eyes of both the brides and their mothers speak volumes about the way in which, for so many Indian women, their preordained futures are ones of meek servitude. The resulting portrait is of a culture that strips women first of their right to choose their own fate, and then of the very family they’ve previously relied upon for guidance and support.”
Director: Amy Goldstein
Producer: Anouchka van Riel
Featuring: Kate Nash, Tom Biller, Linda Buratto, Kate Craig
Where to Watch: Rental (all platforms)
Genre: Music documentary
What critics say: From Kate Erbland’s review, indieWire: An instant star at the age of 18, Nash went from literal obscurity (she worked in a fast food joint, lived with her parents, and posted her music on MySpace) to traveling the world as an in-demand artist in the span of mere months. A desire to grow creatively led to her label dropping her, and Goldstein’s film opens with Nash fighting hard to come back on her own terms. It’s a tough story, but an old one, and audiences will have to wait for half the documentary to zip by—and it does! Nash is very easy to invest in, even in surface-level observations—before the other shoe drops and “Underestimate the Girl” goes somewhere much more raw and rewarding… It’s not immediately clear that something is rotten—besides, you know, the entire music industry—because Nash continues to bring her good humor and spirit to every gig, real or not, demoralizing or inspiring.”
Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To become a Member of Film Independent, just click here. To support us with a donation, click here.
(Header: Songs My Brothers Taught Me)
Environment and Climate Change Canada is looking into reports of funnel clouds in southeast Alberta on Monday.
The federal agency received multiple reports of funnel clouds and damage in two possible areas. Part of their investigation includes contacting area residents and people who may have been impacted by the weather.
One of those areas with reports of damage was near Enchant, Alta., a hamlet in the municipal district of Taber.
Judy Dunsmore told Global News most of the damage on the family’s property about 10 kilometres east of Enchant was to farm buildings and corrals.
“It picked up a wooden grain bin and took it through gates and into a pen. It moved a steel bin off its floor and blew another one over,” Dunsmore said.
Enchant is about an hour northeast of Lethbridge and two hours southeast of Calgary.
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The weather conditions for such an event were in place at the time.
“On Monday, we had enough instability and convergence across southern Alberta to support severe thunderstorms and funnel clouds,” Global Calgary chief meteorologist Tiffany Lizee said.
“There was certainly potential for a landspout tornado, but there wasn’t enough atmospheric uplift to produce supercells.”
Funnel clouds are rotating columns that extend from clouds, but don’t reach the ground. Tornadoes are funnels that interact with the ground, picking up dust or debris.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Environment and Climate Change Canada is looking
Tesla shares fell 9.2% amid rumors that Elon Musk plans to lay off 10% of employees.
The billionaire reportedly sent out emails to employees at his company saying it was time to freeze hiring and cut the workforce as Musk had “a very bad feeling about the global economy.
This means that in just one day, Musk lost 17 billion dollars. But at the same time, the entrepreneur still remains the richest person in the world, and his fortune is estimated at $ 216.8 billion.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is second with $171 billion.
“Tesla shares have fallen 33% in a year. The main thing investors are probably thinking is that they want Musk to shut up.
It was strangely calm last week, and stocks are finally doing well,” Miller Tabak market strategist Matt Maley told Forbes.
Recall that Tesla is an electric car company. It was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003 and named after the famous physicist Nikola Tesla.
In 2004, the founders raised a $7.5 million investment, and Elon Musk contributed $6.5 million. Then Musk became chairman of the board of directors and appointed Eberhard as CEO.
According to preliminary figures, Elon Musk’s fortune has shrunk by about 17 billion since the release of this information.
Shares of the electric car maker fell 9.2 percent on June 3, while Elon Musk’s total value fell to $ 16.9 billion amid speculation of impending cuts.
The merchant’s fortune is estimated at 21 216.8 billion. The purchase price will be $ 44 billion, at $ 54.20 per share, which is 38% higher than the share price at the end of April.
Interestingly, Elon Musk recently talked about creating a new social network and, at the same time, criticized the lack of freedom of expression on Twitter.
Musk was quoted in the media as saying that amid concerns about the US economy, Tesla had ordered the reduction of “about 10% of staff” and the suspension of jobs.
Musk, the world’s richest man, is now worth 21 216.8 billion, according to a business publication.
An extremely potent malware, delivered in a way that’s immune to most cybersecurity (opens in new tab) measures, was discovered infecting high-profile Chinese individuals.
Cybersecurity researchers from Kaspersky have discovered malware they call WinDealer, distributed and used by a Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor called LuoYu. WinDealer, the researchers say, is capable of collecting “an impressive amount” of information. It can view and download any files stored on the device, as well as run a keyword search on all the documents.
To deliver the malware to the target endpoint (opens in new tab), the attackers perform a man-on-the-side attack, essentially hijacking in-transit network traffic.
When the victim tries to access a certain resource on the internet (for example, open their LinkedIn account), they need to send a request to the server, to open the page. This request is the type of traffic that the attackers can intercept and read, and then try to deliver malicious content before the server responds with the legitimate site.
Kaspersky describes the method as a “race” with the legitimate server, the only difference being – the attacker has as many attempts to deliver malicious content as they want. In order to successfully infect a target endpoint, the attacker needs no interaction with the victim, whatsoever.
Targets are mostly high-profile organizations and individuals in China, the researchers further claim. Foreign diplomatic organizations established in China, members of the academic community, defense, logistics, and telecommunications companies, are all listed as potential targets. Besides China, Kaspersky researchers have also mentioned targets in Germany, Austria, the US, the Czech Republic, Russia, and India.
All of the targets are using Windows as their operating system of choice.
Besides being difficult to spot, the malware (opens in new tab) is also difficult to block. Usually, this type of malware contacts a command & control (C2) server for instructions, and simply blocking the IP address of the server would be enough to neutralize the threat. WinDealer, on the other hand, relies on a complex algorithm that generates IP addresses (48,000, Kaspersky says), making blocking impossible.
The only way to defend against such an attack is to route the traffic through another network, for example with a VPN. However, having a VPN in China is easier said than done.
An extremely potent malware, delivered in a
