7 New TV Shows to Watch This Week: June 4

Well, we survived the great content crush of spring 2022. (Timed, of course, for maximum Emmy-voting effectiveness.) Now we can just sit back, take a nice little breather and … wait, what’s that you say? There’s still tons of great television, streaming every week, including this week which contains the return of “For All Mankind,” the launch of a terrific Marvel Studios series on Disney+ and a new Adam Sandler sports drama on Netflix? All the better! May the content crush never end!

On with the television!

“For All Mankind”

Friday, June 10, Apple TV+

“For All Mankind” has been heralded as one of the greatest shows on TV. And that isn’t an unfair assessment. It’s an alternate history look at the space race. Instead of beating Russia to the moon, the U.S. followed them. Real-life heroes are dramatized alongside wholly made-up characters. And everything is rendered in such vivid detail, both conceptually and emotionally, that it feels like watching a historical dramatization of something that actually happened but never did. The third season of the show skips forward yet again; not quite to the 1995 that was teased at the very end of Season 2, but slightly before, as NASA, Russia and a private spaceflight firm (sound familiar?) begin a three-way race to Mars. What’s more, it’s set against the backdrop of the 1992 election cycle; only instead of Bob Dole, Bill Clinton is running against Jodi Balfour’s Ellen Wilson. That’s really all we can give away with good conscience. If you’ve been watching the show, you’re already pumped for Season 3. If you’re new to it and intrigued, you have time to catch up. It’s one small step, really. [TRAILER]

“The Staircase”

Thursday, June 9, HBO Max

“The Staircase” really should have been a sensation. If it had been on linear HBO, maybe it would have been. This series had everything that usually makes for what used to be referred to as water-cooler television – based-on-a-true-story salaciousness, killer twists, weird sex scenes, an owl attack. But it has fallen between the cracks, probably due to the crush of great new programming this spring and, again, because it’s only on HBO Max. “The Staircase” is also full of dynamo performances, led by Colin Firth as a bizarro failed journalist who may or may not have pushed his wife (Toni Collette) down the stairs, landing him in prison for life. Nimbly directed, with a narrative that toggles effortlessly from past to present and between real and imagined scenarios, it’s grim but rewarding. And even if you know the story, you don’t know what to expect – particularly with this final episode. Cannot wait. [INTERVIEW]

“Hustle”
Wednesday, June 8, Netflix

The ballad of Adam Sandler and Netflix has a new verse. “Hustle” places Sandler more squarely in the dramatic space (sorry, “Hubie Halloween” superfans), with the star playing a former basketball scout who attempts to revive his career by recruiting a player from overseas. Sounds good, right? The cast includes Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, Robert Duvall, Anthony Edwards and Juancho Hernangómez, the real-life Utah Jazz player who plays Sandler’s new recruit. (There were a number of NBA stars spotted in the trailer, which maybe isn’t a surprise since the movie is produced by LeBron James.) If you like your Sandler to be a little serious sometimes, “Hustle” (which has already been warmly received by critics) should be a slam dunk. [REVIEW]

“The Janes”

Wednesday, June 8 at 9 p.m., HBO

Some documentaries take on a timeliness that is a little eerie, especially given how long it takes to shoot and edit a documentary feature. That is certainly the case with “The Janes,” which tells the story of The Jane Collective, an underground group in Chicago that helped provide more than 11,000 illegal abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure nationwide. Directors Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin drew early raves out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where the movie was hailed as “urgent and thoroughly engaging” and “rousing.” In light of a looming Supreme Court decision that could overturn Roe v. Wade altogether, the film might also foreshadow the future in many American states. [REVIEW]

“High Flying Bird”
Netflix

If Sandler’s “Hustle” has you itchy for more Netflix basketball drama, why not check out “High Flying Bird,” Steven Soderbergh’s 2019 drama starring André Holland and Zazie Beetz alongside (here we go) real-life NBA players like Reggie Jackson and Karl-Anthony Towns. “High Flying Bird” is a little headier than most sports movies (it boasts an original script by “Moonlight” scribe Tarell Alvin McCraney), with Holland playing an agent who attempts to revolutionize the industry in 72 hours, thanks to a league-wide lockout. Shot entirely on the iPhone 8 (!), which brings an urgency and accessibility to the story, and with a stellar supporting cast that includes Kyle MacLachlan and Bill Duke, “High Flying Bird” is absolutely electric. The film also makes a great double feature with “Hustle” this week. And at 91 minutes, it’s shorter than some of the new “Stranger Things” episodes. [WATCH]

“Irma Vep”
Monday, June 6 at 9 p.m., HBO
French writer-director Olivier Assayas adapted his own 1996 movie of the same name into a limited series, in which Alicia Vikander plays an American actress working on a new version of “Les Vampires.” As her commitment to the role starts to deepen, she begins to lose herself in more than one way. (Obviously, there’s a whole new meta element with Assayas remaking his own film.) The original “Irma Vep” was a lightning rod when it was first released (Owen Gleiberman named it one of the worst films of the year in the pages of Entertainment Weekly) but has simmered into a cult classic over the years. Maybe this new version, which debuted last month at the Cannes Film Festival, will be a favorite out of the gate. [TRAILER]

“That’s My Time With David Letterman”
Tuesday, June 7, Netflix

This new crop of episodes was recorded during the recent Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival that took over a large swath of Los Angeles. The format is slightly different – this time, Letterman is joined by a different comedian, who does a small set before chatting with the late-night legend. Sounds fun! [RECAP]

“Ms. Marvel”
Wednesday, June 8, Disney+
The latest Marvel Studios series for Disney+ is also one of the best. “Ms. Marvel” stars Iman Vellani, a self-described “brown girl from Jersey,” who idolizes Captain Marvel and who, one day, starts exhibiting superpowers of her own. Lively and emotionally real, with a kind of comic book-y style reminiscent of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and a tone that is closer in line with YA fiction than anything Marvel Studios has attempted before, “Ms. Marvel” is a winner. And Vellani is a star. (She’ll be reprising her role in the upcoming “Captain Marvel” sequel, “The Marvels,” slated to hit theaters next summer.) The MCU is expanding! [TRAILER]

“First Kill”
Friday, June 10, Netflix
Based on the V. E. Schwab short story of the same name (Schwab created the series too), “First Kill” is a Y.A. vampire story that is different in a couple of key respects. One – the young couple is interracial, which is a welcome change (one is the latest in a long line of monster hunters, the other is a “legacy vampire” ready for her … first kill). But the other, even more progressive element is that the vampire and the slayer are two young women. Yep, “First Kill” is super gay! The trailer promises some “Buffy”-on-a-budget fun and the Internet should respond very kindly to the gay vampire drama. Twitter will shake. [TRAILER]

“Peaky Blinders”
Friday, June 10, Netflix
This beloved, incredibly British period drama (set in the Birmingham criminal underworld directly after World War I) is finally nearing the end. After the announcement of a sixth and final season, there was a wee bit of backtracking with plans for a feature film to follow. Still, this is the end of “Peaky Blinders” as we have come to know it. This season aired earlier this year on the BBC but is finally coming stateside, with all six episodes once again written by creator Steven Knight. Are you ready to say goodbye (at least for now) to “Peaky Blinders?” Blimey. [TRAILER]

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Well, we survived the great content crush

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Oscars: Movies to Know Right Now for 2023

New films from Martin Scorsese, George Miller, Baz Luhrmann, Claire Denis, and Robert Eggers lead the Oscar frontrunners.

Just when you think you’re out, the Academy Awards will inevitably pull you back in. Not even a viral slap could silence our awards season buzz as we look toward next year’s Oscars.

The 2022 Cannes Film Festival lineup boasts plenty of contenders, with Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” and George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” both marking their respective world premieres. Looking ahead to Venice International Film Festival, Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde” may launch its festival rounds before premiering on Netflix. Will Ana de Armas, who Dominik has already called “fucking amazing” as Marilyn Monroe, land a Best Actress nod?

And lest we forget the cast behind Viking epic ensemble “The Northman,” helmed by self-admitted perfectionist director Robert Eggers, lead Alexander Skarsgård has already received praise for a career-best performance in the Nordic tale, based on the same story that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical film “The Fabelmans” is already poised to be an Oscars favorite, with Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, and David Lynch starring in the 1950s-set period piece.

Did we mention there’s a new Leonardo DiCaprio-Martin Scorsese film on the horizon or that “La La Land” Best Director winner Damien Chazelle is back with “Babylon”? Keep scrolling to see our (constantly updated) top 40 films that look poised to be recognized by the Academy in 2023.

Ryan Lattanzio and Christian Zilko contributed to this story.

“Triangle of Sadness”

Cannes Film Festival

“Triangle of Sadness”

Ruben Östlund won his second Palme d’Or (in as many attempts), for this satire of extravagant wealth, which stars Woody Harrelson as the captain of a super yacht carrying a fleet of rich people. When the yacht crashes, the elite passengers find themselves stranded on a deserted island. The film was a big hit on the Croisette, eliciting a strong response for its ability to combine esoteric ideas with scatological humor. While “Triangle of Sadness” is certainly polarizing—IndieWire’s David Ehrlich called it “frustratingly obtuse”—the film is more audience friendly than other recent Palme d’Or winners, and it should find a receptive audience among Academy members. Neon has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film. -CZ

“Close”

A24

“Close”

Many expected Lukas Dhont’s coming-of-age film “Close” to take home the Palme d’Or at Cannes. But while its loss to “Triangle of Sadness” was disappointing, that does not mean that Oscar gold is off the table. The film, which tells the story of an intimate friendship that develops between two 12-year-old boys, (Eden Dambrine and Remi Gustav De Waele), has earned plenty of praise for its portrayal of childhood innocence and the strong performances from its child actors. A24 acquired the movie in a buzzy sale, and will likely mount a strong Oscar campaign. While “Close” is a strong contender to be submitted as Belgium’s official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category, it will face stiff competition from another Cannes favorite, the Dardenne brothers’ “Tori and Lokita.” -CZ

“One Fine Morning”

Sony Pictures Classics

“One Fine Morning”

“Bergman Island” director Mia Hansen-Løve returned to Cannes with a film that, on the surface, may have seemed like standard French arthouse fare. “One Fine Morning” tells the story of a widowed single mother who engages in an affair with a married man, the kind of story that has inspired countless French films. But a stunning performance from the always-excellent Léa Seydoux elevates the movie into something truly special. The film could compete to be France’s submission in the Best Foreign Language Film category, and if the chips fall in the right way, Seydoux could even find herself competing for an Oscar of her own. Sony Pictures Classics acquired US distribution rights to “One Fine Morning” at Cannes, but the company has yet to announce a release date. -CZ

“Corsage”

Cannes

“Corsage”

Marie Kreutzer’s revisionism-heavy take on Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary was a crowd pleasing hit in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. “Corsage” earned praise for using creative license to deconstruct the myth surrounding one of Austria’s most dramatized historical figures, adding speculative fiction and correcting the record at the same time. The result is one of the more unique period pieces to hit theaters this year, which could allow “Corsage” to appeal to several different groups of Oscar voters. But the vast majority of the film’s award buzz is centered around Vicky Krieps, who stuns as Elizabeth and could inject herself into in the Oscar race in the same way Kristen Stewart did with “Spencer.” IFC Films is distributing “Corsage” in the US, though no release date has been announced. -CZ

“Armageddon Time”

Focus Features

“Armageddon Time”

James Gray has always found the Cannes crowd to be much more receptive to his films than American audiences, but that could change with “Armageddon Time,” his most personal movie to date. The autobiographical film recalls Gray’s experiences growing up in Queens, using his relationship with his paternal grandfather (played by recent Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins) and a Black classmate to examine issues of inequality through the eyes of a middle schooler. Socially conscious Academy members might find the scope of the film too limited, but reviews out of Cannes praised Gray’s delicate touch in recalling his own childhood. If his recent films like “The Lost City of Z” and “Ad Astra” were too weird for the Oscars, this one might have found the sweet spot. Focus Features is handling US distribution, though no release date has been announced. -CZ

“The Northman”

©Focus Features / Courtesy Everett Collection

“The Northman”

Robert Eggers’ third feature film was meticulously researched to make an as-accurate Viking epic drama as possible. “The Northman” stars Alexander Skarsgård as Prince Amleth, who vows to avenge his murdered father (Ethan Hawke) and rescue his kidnapped mother (Nicole Kidman). Eggers co-wrote the screenplay with Icelandic novelist and poet Sjón; the story is based on the same Scandinavian folk tale that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Ineson, and Björk also star in the period drama that infamously had a grueling 87-day production.

“The Northman” has already received critical praise. IndieWire’s Chief Film Critic David Ehrlich wrote, “All you need to know about ‘The Northman’ — a $90 million viking revenge movie directed by Robert Eggers — is that every single moment of it feels like a $90-million viking revenge movie directed by Robert Eggers.”

While more CGI was used than auteur Eggers would have hoped (another COVID-related setback for productions in the midst of a pandemic), “The Northman” marks a turning point for studio-funded cinema. As Eggers told IndieWire, it’s rare that a writer-director gets an opportunity to make a “big movie that’s not an IP movie” in the wake of the superhero takeover of box office grosses. Given that Hawke compared “The Northman” to Oscar-winner “Apocalypse Now,” it’s safe to say “The Northman” will be up for a few Academy Awards come next year.

“Turning Red”

PIXAR

“Turning Red”

Critically acclaimed Pixar film “Turning Red” tells the story of a Toronto teen who turns into a large red panda whenever she gets overwhelmed. The feature is directed by Domee Shi, and stars Rosalie Chiang as adolescent Mei. IndieWire’s Kate Erbland called “Turning Red” an “instant classic” for its touching portrayal of a Chinese-Canadian upbringing. “It’s emotional, stunning, and a joy to behold,” Erbland wrote. “The lessons are of the usual sort — how to be true to yourself, how to honor your family and friends, the value of culture in all its forms, the need to find humor — but they are rendered fresh and new, with ‘Turning Red’ turning in one of Pixar’s best films not just about the pain of life, but the very joy of it, too.”

“Fire of Love

Courtesy Sundance Film Festival

“Fire of Love”

Sara Dosa’s “Fire of Love” is a documentarian’s dream. With a truly amazing trove of archival footage taken by married volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, the movie is, seemingly, essentially handed to the filmmakers. However, that surely didn’t make piecing together this vivid and soaringly heart-tugging documentary a simple task. The filmmakers have restored and re-assembled endless reels and dozens of hours of film and video footage dating back to the late 1960s into a witty portrait, aided amply by appropriately monotone narration from filmmaker Miranda July.

At an economical 90-minute running time, “Fire of Love” packs a visual and emotional wallop, with enough close-ups on erupting volcanoes — one, at a point, is called “a bathtub with a hole in it, sowing death all around” — to leave you slack-jawed, terrified, and awe-inspired as you contemplate a life lived at the edge of a 2,200-degree (°F) abyss. National Geographic and NEON are partnering on the film’s release, which guarantees a strong running in the awards season. It’s the sort of crowd-pleasing documentary that all the branches revel in. —RL

“Elvis”

Warner Bros./screencap

“Elvis”

Austin Butler stars as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the crooner. “Elvis” will officially debut at 2022 Cannes, and charts the “Burning Love” singer’s rise to fame alongside infamous manager Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks. “The Power of the Dog” breakout Oscar nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee portrays country star Jimmie Rodgers, while Olivia DeJonge stars as Elvis’ wife Priscilla and Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays B.B. King. Sam Bromell, Jeremy Doner, and Craig Pearce co-wrote the script with Luhrmann, who filmed the production in his native Australia. “Elvis” will debut in theaters June 24.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, from left: cinematographer John Seale, director George Miller, on set, 2015. ph: Jasin Boland/©Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

Cinematographer John Seale and director George Miller on the set of “Mad Max: Fury Road”

©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Three Thousand Years of Longing”

Academy Award winner George Miller teams up again with much of his “Mad Max: Fury Road” crew for 2022 Cannes Official Selection “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” The film stars Tilda Swinton as a scholar who encounters a Djinn (Idris Elba), who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Their conversation, unfolding in a hotel room in Istanbul, leads to consequences neither expected. Miller has described dialogue-driven “Three Thousand Years of Longing” as the “anti-‘Mad Max.’” Originally slated for a September 2021 release, COVID delays stalled the film’s premiere until 2022. Oscar winner Swinton and Emmy nominee Elba make for a promising partnership onscreen as well as potential awards season fodder.

Emmett Till with his mother, Mamie Bradley, ca. 1950. To expose the horror of her 14 year-old's lynching, she ordered an open coffin funeral to show his tortured and mutilated body. - (BSLOC_2015_1_103)

Emmett Till with his mother Mamie Bradley Till

Everett

“Till”

Chinonye Chukwu writes and directs a biopic about Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler), an American educator and activist who pursues justice after the 1955 lynching of her 14-year-old son Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall). The film utilizes decades worth of research by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, whose documentary “The Untold story of Emmett Till” in part led to the U.S. Department of Justice reopening the case in 2004. Beauchamp co-wrote the screenplay for “Till” with Chukwu, whose 2019 film “Clemency” landed lead star Alfre Woodard a BAFTA nomination. Whoopi Goldberg, Frankie Faison, and Haley Bennett also star in the historical drama. “Till” premieres October 21.

Steven Spielberg

Sipa USA via AP

“The Fabelmans”

Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg turns the camera inward as he brings his own upbringing to the big screen with the semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans.” Set in 1950s Arizona, the film stars Michelle Williams and Paul Dano as Spielberg’s parents, with Seth Rogen playing his favorite uncle. David Lynch also stars in an unspecified role, alongside “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” scene-stealer Julia Butters and newcomer Gabriel LaBelle. Spielberg co-wrote the script with his usual collaborator, Tony Kushner (“West Side Story”). “The Fabelmans,” from Amblin Entertainment, will hit theaters wide November 23.

“Nope”

screenshot

“Nope”

Writer-director Jordan Peele is already an Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay in 2018 for “Get Out.” His follow-up “Us” earned lead star Lupita Nyong’o a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, so Peele fans can expect his third feature “Nope” to garner critical acclaim. Peele reunites with “Get Out” Best Actor nominee (and “Judas and the Black Messiah” Oscar winner) Daniel Kaluuya; Keke Palmer and Steven Yuen join the cast to bring to life the story of a (presumed) alien invasion. The plot details remain under wraps, but a 2022 Super Bowl trailer showed Palmer and Kaluuya playing horse-trainer siblings grappling with the apocalypse. “Euphoria” breakout Barbie Ferreira, “The OA” star Brandon Perea, and Michael Wincott round out the cast. “Nope” is slated for release July 22.

Ana de Armas

Sipa USA via AP

“Blonde”

Will the Netflix movie live up to its hype? Andrew Dominik has already placed his fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biopic in the ranks of “Citizen Kane” and “Raging Bull,” two legendary Academy Award–winning films. Ana de Armas stars as Monroe in the adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel “Blonde.” The author tweeted that the film captured the “magic” of a truly unprecedented tone. “It is startling, brilliant, very disturbing and perhaps most surprisingly an utterly ‘feminist’ interpretation,” Oates wrote. “Not sure that any male director has ever achieved anything [like] this.”

As in Oates’ 700-page book, the players in Monroe’s life are all identified only by nicknames. Dominik’s film adaptation is similarly steering clear of actual names, with Bobby Cannavale playing “The Ex-Athlete” (Joe DiMaggio), Adrien Brody is “The Playwright” (Arthur Miller), and Caspar Phillipson stars as “The President” (John F. Kennedy). The film has already made history as Netflix’s first NC-17 rated original feature, and lead star de Armas called her own casting “groundbreaking” due to her Cuban descent. The “Deep Water” star added to The Sunday Times that she underwent “torture” to perfect Monroe’s voice. And Dominik called de Armas “fucking amazing” as Monroe, telling Screen Daily, “The one thing nobody’s going to complain about is [de Armas’] performance.” “Blonde” has yet to land a release date.

Claire Denis

zz/NDZ/STAR MAX/IPx

“Stars at Noon”

Claire Denis’ long-awaited adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novel “The Stars at Noon” will make its world premiere In Competition at Cannes. Set during the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1984, the film stars Joe Alwyn as a mysterious English businessman who meets an American journalist (Margaret Qualley) reporting on the revolution. The two have an instant connection and a passionate romance ensues, but a “dangerous labyrinth of lies and conspiracies” forces them to try to escape the country. “High Life” star Robert Pattinson was originally set to rejoin his “Stars at Noon” director before production delays on “The Batman” led him to exit the A24 project. Denis wrapped filming “Stars at Noon” in Panama in December 2021. The theatrical release date will be set after its Cannes premiere.

“Moonage Daydream”

NEON

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The 40 Movies You Need to Know Right Now for Oscars 2023: ‘Elvis,’ ‘Blonde,’ and More

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June 5, 2022

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New films from Martin Scorsese, George Miller,

Entertaintment

I’m ten years old and man a checkpoint in Ukraine with a toy gun

A BRAVE Ukrainian boy has been manning a checkpoint in Ukraine with a toy Kalashnikov to protect his village.

Nazar, 10, who stands guard from 9am to 9pm every day with a group of young lads, said he’s not scared anymore after seeing the horrors of the war.

Nazar stands guard from 9am to 9pm with a group of boysCredit: Sky News

The brave 10-year-old checks every car which passesCredit: Sky News

He asks drivers asked to say two Ukrainian words to see if they can passCredit: Sky News

The daring youngster said he felt he had no choice but to step up and help protect his family, friends and neighbours after Russian troops swarmed the village.

Dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and a Nike cap, he told Sky News: “They raped a woman in the school, there were a lot of children and women hiding in the basement.

“They forced them out and moved in, and they shone torches through people’s windows at night.

“And every day there were tanks and cars driving back and forth.”

Putin's dwindling troops outnumbered as Ukraine 'can mobilise ONE MILLION men'

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While he brandishes a toy Kalashnikov, his pal holds a a small black toy BB gun as they stop cars at the checkpoint.

He said drivers are asked to say two Ukrainian words – words that are difficult to say in Russian – to see if they can pass.

The words are “Ukrazaliznitsa” and “Palianitsa” – one is a Ukrainian railway company, the other a type of Ukrainian bread.

Nazar said he once caught a Russian trying to pass the checkpoint.

He said: “A driver failed the test, but we let him pass. Next time we won’t be so lenient.”

It comes as an expert claimed the conflict has reached a “state of attrition” – with Russian forces severely outnumbered after 100 days since the invasion of Ukraine began.

Swedish economist and Russia expert Anders Aslund told The Sun: “At the 100-day mark, the war is at a stalemate.”

“Ukraine has all the soldiers it can possibly need. It can mobilise up to one million men.

“Russia, on the other hand, has a shortage of soldiers. Because this is not technically a war, Putin cannot legally send in conscripts.

“They are sending in more troops anyway, but they get around this by calling them contractor soldiers.”

He added: “However, if Putin did try to change the law, to force conscription, there would be massive opposition. For Ukraine, on the other hand, they will soon run out of ammunition and heavy artillery.

“Russia has piles and piles of artillery. Even though they have lost a lot of armed vehicles, tanks, and airplanes, this has now become an artillery war.”

Heroic Ukrainian soldiers have repelled a massive Russian blitz to reclaim a chunk of key city Severodonetsk.

Volodymr Zelensky’s forces have retaken a fifth of the area seized in the industrial heartland as they battle Vladimir Putin’s thugs in the eastern Donbas.

Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai hailed the success as a physical and psychological victory given the forces Russia has pumped into the region from other parts of Ukraine.

Analysts say holding Severodonetsk would be seen as another failure for Putin after his troops were pushed back from Kyiv.

Officials said yesterday nine attacks in Severodonetsk had been stopped in the previous 24 hours. Air defence units downed a cruise missile and three drones.

Ukraine is hoping to take delivery soon of advanced missile systems Britain and the US have pledged to provide, and on which its soldiers have started training.

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Mr Haidai said: “As soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions.

“And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run.”

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A BRAVE Ukrainian boy has been manning

Movies

Mark Rylance on ‘Jerusalem’ and the Golf Comedy ‘Phantom of the Open’

The acclaimed British actor explains the links between his tour de force stage turn and a recent string of subdued screen roles.

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The acclaimed British actor explains the links

Film

Bill Maher Says America Might Be Too F-ing Dumb to Continue

Bill Maher doubts that America can pull itself out of the heap of problems it seems to be in these days, largely due to its inhabitants, many of whom he says are “intractably, astoundingly, mind-numbingly stupid.”

The comedian and host jumped right to his point without mincing words on Friday night’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.” “Before we tackle any of our daunting specific problems here in America, we have to figure out how a country can solve any problem if so many of its people are so intractably, astoundingly, mind-numbingly stupid,” he began.

“And I’m not saying that as hyperbole or just out of frustration,” he continued. “I mean this country just might be empirically, verifiably too f—ing dumb to continue as an ongoing enterprise.”

To illustrate his thinking, Maher mentioned a bit Jay Leno used to do on “The Tonight Show” called Jaywalking, where he asked ordinary people on the street questions that – let’s be honest – they really should know the answers to. Common knowledge stuff.

“That bit has been, shall we say, updated and is still a useful indicator of where exactly we are on the Bird Brain Chart,” Maher said, showing clips of people thinking, for example, a human can walk on the sun, that Asia is the world’s biggest city, or Queen Elizabeth is from Egypt.

“So, you tell me if a country is only as strong as its people, what can the future possibly hold for a population this moronic?” he asked. “This country simply has no education standards anymore. They will let you out of a public high school and give you a diploma and you don’t have to actually know anything, which used to be the mission of schools — knowing things.”

He went on: “I know it’s super important to stop the grooming of our kids or, I don’t know, to start it, and certainly critical race theory must be stricken from the curriculum or, who knows, maybe included in all of it. But you know while we’re having those fights, could someone please notice that the kids don’t actually know anything?”

You can check out Maher’s entire New Rules segment this week in the clip at the top.

Bill Maher Calls Homeless Problem ‘History’s Saddest Coachella’ (Video)

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Bill Maher doubts that America can pull

Ms. Marvel and Queer As Folk debut

Iman Vellani in Ms. Marvel; a member of the Janes; Ryan O’Connell in Queer As Folk — Iman Vellani in Ms. Marvel; a member of the Janes; Ryan O’Connell in *Queer As Folk*

Welcome to What’s On, our weekly picks of must-watch shows. Here’s what you need to watch from Sunday, June 5 to Thursday, June 9. All times are Eastern. [Note: The weekend edition of What’s On drops on Fridays.]

The biggies

Ms. Marvel (Wednesday, Disney+, 3:01 a.m., series premiere)

Hello, Ms. Marvel. Iman Vellani suits up as the MCU’s newest and youngest superhero Kamala Khan in the Disney+ drama. Vellani plays a 16-year-old Pakistani-American teen who discovers she has superpowers once she dons her ancestor’s bangles. Luckily, she’s already obsessed with The Avengers and has a real soft spot for Captain Marvel. With the help of her friend Bruno (Matt Lintz), Kamala learns how to navigate her abilities while battling an unexpected enemy. The six-episode series also stars Yasmeen Fletcher, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, and Rish Shah. The A.V. Club will recap Ms. Marvel weekly. And if you need an introduction to the character, we’ve got you covered, too.

The Janes (Wednesday, HBO, 9 p.m.)

This timely documentary, directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, traces a group of women who formed a clandestine network in Chicago in 1972 for those seeking safe and affordable abortions. In the pre-Roe v. Wade era when abortion was a crime in most states—a time we sadly may be returning to—the Janes provided low-cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women.

Queer As Folk (Thursday, Peacock, 3:01 a.m.)

A reimagining of Russell T. Davies’ aughts drama of the same name, Queer As Folk is set in New Orleans and follows a diverse group of friends who find their lives transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy. The cast includes Ryan O’Connell, Devin Way, Fin Argus, Kim Cattrall, Juliette Lewis, Ed Begley Jr., and Jesse James Keitel. All eight episodes drop on Thursday. Keep an eye out for The A.V. Club’s review this week.

Hidden gems

Roswell: New Mexico (The CW, Monday, 8 p.m., season four premiere)

The fourth and final season of sci-fi drama Roswell: New Mexico starts on The CW on Monday. Developed by Carina Adly Mackenzie, the show is a modern-day adaptation of Melinda Metz’s Roswell High book series. Jason Katims previously turned the novels into Roswell, which aired on The WB from 1999 to 2002 and starred Shiri Appleby. The actor now joins this reboot, rounding out a cast that also includes Jeanine Mason, Nathan Dean, Michael Vlamix, Lily Cowles, Heather Hemmens, and Michael Trevino.

That’s My Time With David Letterman (Netflix, Tuesday, 3:01 a.m.)

A part of Netflix’s 11-day-long comedy festival, That’s My Time With David Letterman features the former late-night host’s favorite comics and personalities, who each take the stage for a tight five.

Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration (Netflix, Thursday, 3:01 a.m.)

Margaret Cho, Patti Harrison, Trixie Mattel, Mae Martin, Bob the Drag Queen, Guy Branum, Sam Jay, Judy Gold, Joel Kim Booster, and Gina Yashere are only a few of the names headlining this queer stand-up event, which took place at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

More good stuff

MTV Film & TV Awards (MTV, Sunday, 8 p.m.)

Vanessa Hudgens hosts this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards from Los Angeles. This year’s top TV nominees include Squid Game, Euphoria, Loki, and Ted Lasso, while Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Batman, Scream, and Dune are among the films up for awards.

Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill (Netflix, Monday, 3:01 a.m.)

Podcaster, writer, and comedian Bill Burr’s new stand-up special features his signature no-nonsense comic style, as well as his curated list of fellow comedians like Jimmy Carr and Michelle Wolff.

All Rise (OWN, Tuesday, 3:01 a.m., season three premiere)

After a two-season run on CBS, Greg Spottiswood’s legal drama moves to OWN for its third batch of episodes. The show follows newly appointed Judge Lola Carmichael (Simone Missick), a highly regarded former deputy district attorney who doesn’t intend to sit back on the bench in her new role. Wilson Bethel, Jessica Camacho, and Marg Helgenberger also star.

Can’t miss recaps

RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars (Paramount+, Friday, 3:01 a.m.)

Barry (HBO, Sunday, 10 p.m.)

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+, Wednesday, 3:01 a.m.)

Ending soon

Ziwe (Showtime, Sunday, 11 p.m., season two finale)

Girls5eva (Peacock, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., season two finale)

The Staircase (HBO Max, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., season finale)

Legendary (HBO Max, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., season three finale)

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Iman Vellani in Ms. Marvel; a member

What to Watch

2. Insidious: The Last Key $29.6M

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Awards

What and Who Will Take Home Festival Prizes? – The Hollywood Reporter

The 75th Cannes Film Festival will come to a close on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. local time with a closing ceremony at which prizes will be dished out to several of the 21 films that played in competition. Unlike some years, there are no runaway favorites for any of 2022’s most coveted honors, which are being decided by a jury comprised of Asghar Farhadi, Rebecca Hall, Vincent Lindon (jury president), Ladj Ly, Jeff Nichols, Deepika Padukone, Noomi Rapace, Joachim Trier and Jasmine Trinca. So I thought I would offer a bit of informed speculation about how those might pan out.

PALME D’OR AND GRAND PRIZE

It’s hard to imagine that Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s Close, a deeply affecting portrayal of a friendship between two young boys who may be gay, won’t walk away with the fest’s first or second prize for best film. It was certainly the best film I saw at this year’s fest, and A24 was wise to snag its U.S. distribution rights hours before it premiered. Dhont, who is just 30 and would be one of the youngest-ever winners of a top Cannes award, unveiled his one prior feature in Cannes four years ago: Girl, the story of a trans youngster, was recognized with the Caméra d’Or for best first feature and the Queer Palm en route to being selected as the Belgian entry for the best international feature Oscar. I suspect Close will end up representing the country at the Oscars, too.

I’d also keep an eye on the neo-noir Decision to Leave (which MUBI will distribute in the U.S.) from South Korean master Park Chan-wook, who won the Grand Prize in 2004 for Oldboy (after jury president Quentin Tarantino unsuccessfully fought for him to receive the Palme), as well as four titles from past Palme winners.

The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, my favorite filmmakers, have twice taken home Cannes’ highest honor — for 1999’s Rosetta and 2005’s L’Enfant — and are likely in the mix for Tori and Lokita, which could make them the first filmmakers ever to pull off a Palme hat-trick. (Tori and Lokita is still seeking U.S. distribution, perhaps because it is heartbreakingly bleak.) Their film, like another top prospect, R.M.N. from Cristian Mungiu (IFC), the Romanian auteur who won 15 years ago for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, centers on the plight of refugees who come to their home countries seeking a better life.

Meanwhile, Ruben Ostlund, the Swede who won for 2017’s The Square, is back in contention for another dark comedy, Triangle of Sadness (acquired during the fest by Neon for U.S. distribution), which sends up the rich and those who cater to them or desperately want to join their ranks. It may ultimately prove a bit too long (at 149 minutes) and polarizing to land a top prize.

And Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, a winner for 2018’s Shoplifters, should not be discounted for Broker (also Neon), another project about social outcasts who come together to form an unconventional family, this time in South Korea. It received a fest-best 12-minute standing ovation (matched only by the one accorded to Baz Luhrmann’s out-of-competition Elvis).

It seems unlikely that a film from a North American and/or female filmmaker will make the cut. Canadian David Cronenberg’s return to body-horror Crimes of the Future (Neon) and American James Gray’s autobiographical Armageddon Time (Focus) both proved rather divisive. And of the five female-directed titles in competition, only one went over somewhat well, American Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams’ reunion Showing Up (A24) — although the legendary Frenchwoman Claire Denis, who had a film in competition for only the second time, certainly has many admirers among her peers and cannot be totally ruled out for Stars at Noon (A24).

And how’s this for a wild-card possibility: EO (still seeking U.S. distribution), the story of a donkey in a circus (inspired by Robert Bresson’s 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar), from veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski.

BEST DIRECTOR

It’s hard to game out Cannes juries, as they spread their prizes around as much as possible. So if, say, Dhont and Park’s films are awarded the best film prizes, then that takes their filmmakers out of the running for best director.

One can try to psychoanalyze this year’s jurors to figure out what/who they would most likely connect with — for instance, one could argue that Farhadi has made films that pose moral questions like Tori and Lokita and others from the Dardennes (who were awarded best director in 2019 for Young Ahmed); Trier’s work tends to be a bit eccentric like Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness; and Nichols has made films about young people coming of age, not unlike Gray’s Armageddon Time. But there is, of course, no guarantee that filmmakers will vote for films that are like their own.

Another consideration: are jurors swayed when filmmakers contextualize their films in remarks inside the Palais after their film’s premiere? If so, R.M.N.’s Mungiu (who won this award for 2016’s Graduation) may have helped his cause with his emotional remarks.

If we were talking about the Oscars, there would be a greater likelihood of the best director prize going to someone as a sort of recognition of career achievement — perhaps Crimes of the Future’s Cronenberg, who has had a half-dozen films at the fest prior to Crimes, but only won something once (Crash took home a jury prize in 1996) and would seem ripe for recognition; or 84-year-old Skolimowski, who has now had eight films at the fest over 50 years with only a special jury prize in 1978 and a best screenplay prize in 1982 to show for it.

But Cannes juries tend not to operate that way, opting instead to reward people in the prime of their career for deeply personal passion projects, which is why I wouldn’t rule out Armageddon Time’s Gray, Triangle of Sadness’ Ostlund or Broker’s Kore-eda.

BEST ACTOR

Cannes juries not infrequently present this award to costars, which is why one cannot rule out the boys from Close, Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele. But if they are off the table because their film has received a higher honor, then perhaps another young performer, Tori and Lokita’s Pablo Schils, has a chance.

However, child actor winners are actually rather rare, which is why there’s probably a better chance of this award going to Mehdi Bajestani, who plays a serial killer in Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider (Utopia); Crimes of the Future’s Viggo Mortensen; Marin Grigore, the imperfect husband and father of R.M.N.; or a favorite of several festivalgoers I spoke with, Fares Fares for his regular collaborator Tarik Saleh’s political thriller Boy from Heaven (still seeking U.S. distribution).

BEST ACTRESS

I wouldn’t count out Crimes of the Future star and hometown favorite Lea Seydoux (also great in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight selection One Fine Morning), who is one of only two performers who have won the Palme but who has never won the fest’s best actress prize, which has gone to plenty of other Frenchwomen in recent years.

Romanian actress Judith State, who plays a woman dealing with trouble at work and at home in R.M.N., is certainly a worthy option, as well.

But the smart money seems to be divided between Tori and Lokita’s first-time performer Mbundu Joely; Triangle of Sadness’ “I’m the captain now” scene-stealer Dolly De Leon; and Decision to Leave’s ageless femme fatale Tang Wei.

BEST SCREENPLAY

Contenders who have previously won this prize and could again include EO’s Skolimowski (1982’s Moonlighting), Tori and Lokita’s Dardennes (2008’s Lorna’s Silence) and R.M.N.’s Mungiu (2012’s Beyond the Hills). Armageddon Time’s Gray and Crimes of the Future’s Cronenberg could certainly win for scripts, which are deeply personal in different ways. But this feels like the likeliest place for the jury to recognize the off-the-wall creativity of Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness.

SHOT-IN-THE-DARK PREDICTIONS

Palme d’Or: Close (Lukas Dhont)

Grand Prize: Tori and Lokita (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne)

Best Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda (Broker)

Best Actor: Fares Fares (Boy from Heaven)

Best Actress: Tang Wei (Decision to Leave)

Best Screenplay: Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Ostlund)

Jury Prize: EO (Jerzy Skolimowski)

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The 75th Cannes Film Festival will come

Music

T Bone Burnett, David Mansfield and Steven Soles Remember Bob Neuwirth

Where to begin in assessing the multi-faceted life and career of Bob Neuwirth, the singer, songwriter, visual artist, mentor, creative catalyst, restless collaborator and provocateur who died May 18 in Santa Monica at 82?

As good a starting point as any comes from three longtime friends and collaborators who agreed to share their reflections on Neuwirth’s legacy with Variety: multiple Grammy-winning producer-songwriter-guitarist-singer T Bone Burnett, producer, songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist Steven Soles and multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer David Mansfield.

Typical of so many artists whose paths intersected with Neuwirth’s, the threesome entered his circle independently, but once there found common ground with one another. With significant credit going to his frequent role as instigator, they came together as the critically acclaimed Alpha Band in the late 1970s, and subsequently moved on to prolific solo careers.

The Alpha Band emerged out of their parts in the musical ensemble that backed Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn and numerous others who shared the spotlight during Dylan’s wild and wooly Rolling Thunder Revues of 1975 and ’76 — a venture, Mansfield suggests, that was as much a product of Neuwirth’s influence behind the scenes as Dylan’s out front.

Neuwirth released a handful of solo albums over the span of a quarter-century, and contributed to countless other musicians’ recordings for more than half a century. His final solo album, released in 1999, was “Havana Midnight,” for which he and producer Soles teamed with Cuban composer and pianist Jose Maria Vitier in assembling a disparate group of musicians for a characteristically inspired collaboration that yielded exquisite musical results.

He also was a respected abstract painter, having studied art at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and who considered Jackson Pollock a chief inspiration along with Rembrandt and the masters. His work was the subject of a career retrospective in 2011, “Overs & Unders: Paintings by Bob Neuwirth 1964-2009,” at L.A.’s Track 16 Gallery.

Throughout his life he danced on the edge of fame, but consciously sidestepped its trappings — despite important associations with Dylan, Janis Joplin (he co-wrote her hit “Mercedes Benz,” and introduced her to Kris Kristofferson’s song “Me and Bobby McGee”), Patti Smith, John Cale, Kris Kristofferson and too many others to itemize.

As Dylan himself wrote of Neuwirth in his 2004 book “Chronicles: Volume One,” “Like Kerouac had immortalized Neal Cassady in ‘On the Road,’ somebody should have immortalized Neuwirth. He was that kind of character.”

Yet so many who knew and worked with him knew that fame and fortune never ranked high on his priority list, pointing to his selfless spirit of camaraderie, generosity and underlying positivity. “In the early days, he and the famous Bob were considered word assassins,” Soles remembers, “but Neuwirth traded that angle of inclination to healing humanity through words and deeds.”

The word “mentor” comes up regularly in conversations about his legacy. Neuwirth had, Burnett says, “an eye for latent talent [and] an ability to draw it out.”

More often than not, he worked to put the spotlight on others rather than himself. As Mansfield puts it below, “He gave, he never took.”

AN ATTEMPT AT A RECOUNTING OF BOBBY NEUWIRTH

Bob Neuwirth was a mad Zen monk

He knew what was good

And what wasn’t

He saw what was coming

He had an acute eye and an open ear

And a deep soul

He was

insightful

incisive

intuitive

smart

brilliant

funny, funniest

discrete

trustworthy

kind

a mentor

an eye for latent talent

an ability to draw it out

encouragement

support

wisdom

He was prototype angel headed hipster

He was a beat generation hillbilly singer

A songwriter of astonishing skill

And an abstract artist

His songs were amazing improvisations that he would never remember

Occasionally someone else would remember one

Bobby Neuwirth’s positive influence on the world will be arcane but felt for decades, for centuries, for the indefinite future.

He was discerning

astute

sharp edged

unforgettable

loving

heartbreaking

heartbroken

Bob Neuwirth arrived with the birth of the cool, at the end of the Bebop/Beat/Abstract Expressionist transformation of American culture.

He was a beneficiary of that transformation. And he carried it into the future, into the now. He was hipper than Jack Kerouac. He was hipper than Jackson Pollack.

He was an artist of the highest caliber.

In one of our last conversations, he said, “The dystopia we are living in is so much worse than the worst dystopian nightmares of our youth…”

He said it, of course, with deep sadness, but his blood was ice water.

He was not resigned.

And he was happy.

Steven Soles, T Bone Burnett, Bob Neuwirth and David Mansfield at Neuwirth’s concert at McCabe’s in Santa Monica in 2018
Sharyl Holtzman

I grew up on the Eastern end of Long Island where the famous meet the dollar. I was immersed in the art world and I watched my father create art every day. It was only natural I ended up in the Woodstock kitchen of Geoff and Maria Muldaur meeting Bob Neuwirth for the first time in 1968. I could see he was all about art.

Drinks were flowing where musicians John Herald, Artie Traum and members of the Band were cloistered. They were laughing and completely enthralled in the plain-speak of this unsung American master of the postwar era. After you spent time with Neuwirth, you felt smarter and inspired. He always challenged you.

Random selection had placed me there so I might enhance my taste for non-academic learning. This was followed by many nights of nonstop music and song, the smell of paint and turpentine as we added our names to the growing renaissance that was spreading across the globe. It was like an extension cord where the notes are revealed in rapid-fire and beautiful slow chords. Harmony and discourse all in one. Small-town talk not discounted.

Neuwirth was always there, playing his fractured version of the genius many of us would come to recognize. He was equally at home with kings and paupers. In the early days, he and the famous Bob were considered word assassins, but Neuwirth traded that angle of inclination to healing humanity through words and deeds.

Not everyone would make it out of the ‘60s or the ‘70s. We did. It was during those times Neuwirth would become a permanent fixture in my life and — over the next 50 years — a close friend and confidant. We loved watching and attending baseball games from the majors to the minors. Collaborating with other artists was a passion for Neuwirth, which led us to Cuba, where an unlikely collaboration with arranger Jose Maria Vitier and his hand-selected Cuban musicians produced a unique album he titled “Havana Midnight.” It was a cultural exchange in an altruistic tradition, which remains a hallmark of Bobby’s artistic integrity.

Art for art’s sake, thank you very much.

He was always searching for paintings, words and song all mixed together in a perfect gumbo. Black and white and colors not yet named. He was an older brother, not fearful or judgmental. Full of encouragement and truth-telling that could be hurtful yet honest, but in the end brought more inspiration and clarity than I thought possible, punctuated by the latest score of the baseball game we were watching.

To those who were lucky enough to be in his orbit, I say, “Be grateful for the precious time we had together.” I am.

Long Adios Bob…

Lazy loaded image — Steven Soles, T Bone Burnett, Bob Neuwirth, David Mansfield and Tony Gilkyson at Neuwirth’s concert at McCabe’s in Santa Monica in 2018
Sharyl Holtzman

Let me start with an anecdote about what it was like hanging out with Bob. On the second Rolling Thunder tour we had a few unexpected days off around a show in Baton Rouge, and Bob decides we should all go visit his pal Bobby Charles (“Walking to New Orleans”) at his bayou home in Abbeville (as if that madcap tour was not enough of an adventure in itself!).

Joe Cocker had just released an album featuring a fantastic song of Charles’, “You Came Along” (“God bless the gift of laugher, thank God for a world of song”), so it was doubly an excuse for celebration. That weekend, knowing I’d get addicted, Bob introduced me to Cajun music via D. L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces. That was a life-changer right there.

When we pulled up in the tour bus, Charles’ girlfriend, Judy Hill, was already hard at work in the kitchen, turning out a seemingly endless supply of crawfish étoufée and boudin blanc. Bobby’s aide-de-camp was a scary, snaggle-toothed character named “Bird.” By way of introduction, Bird would pull out his tactical hunting knife and explain in a thick accent how he could disembowel you and place your intestines in your hands before you would even feel it. Then he headed off into the swamp to catch us a gator for the grill. Sure enough, within a few hours we were at the table, washing down gator steaks with beer, and, as we dig in, Neuwirth says, “Have you ever had alligator? It tastes just like…dinosaur.”

Professionally, I’m an accompanist. When I write a film score, my job is to accompany the drama. Whenever Bob played a show of his own, he would call me in, and my job was to make him more accessible; to surround, sometimes even translate, his songwriting, so more people in the audience would “get it.” Because a Bob Neuwirth show wasn’t a passive experience, you weren’t going to be spoon-fed. But it was always brilliant. I did what I could to serve that.

Making music with Bob was always an adventure. He was a three-chord-song type of guy, and like many of the writers who cut their teeth on the old, weird America of the Harry Smith Anthology, he ended a phrase when he felt like it, or sometimes got spooked and doubled back, and you just had to hang on for the ride. But underneath this musical unpredictability was the same aesthetic in his abstract painting. It equally drove his music-making.

When we made records, we usually did them reasonably conventionally, but live he was capable of going off the musical grid as easily and profoundly as any jazz musician. Take a listen to the music and poetry record he produced a few years ago for Vince Bell, “Ojo.” Much has been written about Bob’s innate talent at scene-making, which was certainly true — the scene that became Rolling Thunder was essentially Neuwirth’s — and he was in fine fettle for Vince’s sessions.

Jazz bassist Ratzo Harris, pianist and theremin virtuoso Rob Schwimmer, avant-garde classical flutist Robert Dick, French composer and clarinetist Renaud-Gabriel Pion, flamenco genius Pedro Cortez, country singer Laura Cantrell, downtown legend Dave Soldier — he stirred that pointillistic musical soup in a way nobody else could have, to startling effect.

From the day I walked into a toilet-of-a-dressing-room at the Other End, an 18-year-old with a fiddle case under my arm, until his death, Bob was the single person who made the most impact on my life. I expect that to continue to be true.

I had had a fair amount of experience in dealing with celebrity before then — my band had opened for Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris at Max’s Kansas City in 1973, and when I met Neuwirth I was playing in Eric Andersen’s band.

Within a few months Bob dumped me in the deep end of the celeb pool by inviting me to join the Rolling Thunder Revue, where one was required to keep a poker face while accompanying Dylan, Baez and McGuinn. Somehow, without ever saying a word, he taught me how to be unfazed, maybe just by treating me as an equal, right off the bat, and by that same kind of bottomless encouragement he doled out to Janis, Patti Smith, Lucinda Williams and countless others when they were starting out.

That year, he mentored me in learning how not to be impressed, or lust after, celebrity. I did, at least a little, in my younger years, but Bob didn’t give up on me. He was the artistic and spiritual godfather of the band T Bone, Steven and I formed in 1976, the Alpha Band, and, by example, without ever pontificating, taught me that we were making art, not commerce. No capital A, no big deal, just simply what we do. And whenever any of the three of us would veer off the path, he would be there to gently bust us. And laugh. And make us laugh. A lot.

I’m pretty sure I accompanied Bob at his first sober club gig, in Greenwich Village, sometime in the early ‘80s. He was panicked, having to face a crowd for the first time with no buffer, worried, above all, that he had lost his sense of humor.

The opposite, of course, turned out to be true. What followed was over 40 years of recording, performing and painting. We may all be grieving his loss, but, thanks to sobriety, we got much more than anyone would have expected from the man I once watched drink Kris Kristofferson literally under the table at the late Fritz Richmond’s house in Laurel Canyon in the mid-’70s. And there begins another side to the Neuwirth story.

One thing for sure: Bob always had boundless energy and creativity. When he got sober, he channeled both not only into his art, but also into tirelessly serving others. He became a first responder, albeit the hippest one you’d ever seen. Which is, maybe, part of how he literally saved so many lives.

That guy who had been panicked that no one would go to his shows anymore somehow made sobriety incredibly cool. And the man who had started out as my creative mentor became my spiritual inspiration. I know I speak for hundreds (no, probably thousands) who would say the same. When a man like that passes, it leaves an immense hole, but also immense inspiration. As my friend Geoff Muldaur said, “Well, I guess we’ll all have to step up our game.”

I simply wouldn’t be me without Bob Neuwirth. What’s really crazy is how many other people feel the same way — some of them famous, some of them obscure; some of them living, some of them dead.

Einstein taught us that when mass is sufficiently dense, space-time curves around it. We call that gravity. Maybe that’s the easiest explanation for the way Bob was at the center of so much. He was able to hang with both the rich and famous and the poor and obscure with equal grace.

When I was young, I was rather agog at how he could be in the middle of scene after scene, but I finally realized his secret. He didn’t want anything. He gave, he never took. He was the always the biggest presence in the room without it ever being about him. He had no false humility, either; he just knew how to quietly deflect attention.

C.S. Lewis said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” I wonder if Jack Lewis secretly plays the banjo?

Randy Lewis covered pop music for the Los Angeles Times from 1981-2020.

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Where to begin in assessing the multi-faceted

Docs

Dear Thirteen | Film Threat

Dear Thirteen begins with a personal anecdote from director Alexis Neophytides. As it turns out, her diary was stolen when she was thirteen. As a result, scores of memories and feelings that would’ve forever been preserved were now irretrievable from the vantage point of her older self. This ostensibly provides the impetus for the filmmaker to journey across the globe for an ambitious documentary that shines a light on the diverse lives of several thirteen-year-olds as they navigate through the formative years of early adolescence.

All of her subjects are memorable in one way or another. Evie, a young Australian transwoman with a penchant for dressing as a mermaid, is undergoing preparations for her first dose of puberty blockers. In an admittedly alarming sequence, Arkansawyer Landon lays out his small arsenal of hunting rifles on his bed. Fany, meanwhile, is a badass Mexican amateur boxer with little interest in the typical hobbies of her girlfriends. This is just a small selection of the disparate young men and women we encounter.

This broad sample of teenagers across the globe would not appear to have much in common. I mean, what could a firearms aficionado in Trump country and an Indian girl in Nepal possibly have in common? Not much on the surface. But beneath the obvious differences in race, gender, and class – which, thankfully, Neophytides never directly alludes to – the film acts as a God’s eye view of a universal set of experiences that transcend ethnic, sexual, and economic modifiers. Plans for the future, dating, familial expectations, all formative experiences that prove to be commonalities, are at the heart of this set of earnest thirteen-year-olds.

“…shines a light on the diverse lives of several thirteen-year-olds…”

Dear Thirteen ends up being so much more than a collection of teenage angst in the form of a talking-heads documentary. Equal parts funny and emotionally affecting, the film succeeds not only because of the fantastic array of subjects (how in the world does one find such an interesting group?) but also benefits from accomplished editing and good pacing. The impressive work of editor Trina Rodriguez is on full display here, blending footage together to create memorable sequences that add additional poignancy to what otherwise would’ve been a more standard experience.

There’s a short montage of budding Tiktok star Madeline breathlessly saying “OK!” in the grating lexicon of middle school girls. Neophytides subtly compares manhood rituals as we transition from a French bar mitzvah to a boy fawning over his frightening collection of lethal weapons. No matter the scene, it’s evident that the film is a product from a team of artists attuned to the power of images.

It’s hard to pinpoint any shortcomings other than I wanted more. Spending time with these young individuals – the future of our world – brings to mind how it felt when the world was our oyster. Even when factoring in cultural relativity and class distinctions, it’s easy to see that maybe we’re not that different after all, which isn’t a novel thesis by any stretch of the imagination. Still, it’s a refreshing reminder in a world community that seems increasingly cynical. Dear Thirteen bravely suggests that looking back just might be the way ahead.

Dear Thirteen screens at the 2022 SF DocFest.

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June 5, 2022

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Dear Thirteen begins with a personal anecdote from

Global

North Korea fires eight ballistic missiles as fears grow Kim Jong-un is preparing a nuclear test

NORTH Korea has fired eight ballistic missiles from multiple locations at the same time amid fears Kim Jong-un could be preparing a fresh nuclear test.

The dictator has vowed to ramp up his weapons programme this year and boasted that he would “shake the world” with yet more missile tests.

North Korea launched eight ballistic missiles on Sunday from multiple locationsCredit: AP

North Korean leader Kim Jong-unCredit: AP

People watch a TV screen showing a news show on North Korea’s missile launchCredit: AP

The latest volley of missiles were launched on Sunday from multiple locations towards the sea over a 30-minute period, South Korea said.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said: “Our military detected eight short-range ballistic missiles fired by North Korea.”

They travelled different distances – from 68 miles to 416 miles – and flew at different altitudes of up to 55 miles.

Japanese Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said the simultaneous test-firing from multiple locations was “unusual”.

Warning over NK nuke threat after Kim Jong-un's crypto hackers target US

North Korea fires TWO ballistic missiles towards sea in fresh tests, Seoul says

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” he added.

According to local reports, two missiles were shot from each site – the largest number of ballistic missiles North Korea has recently launched on a single day.

Analysts said the missile launches – one of nearly 20 weapons tests by Pyongyang so far this year – is a chilling message for Seoul and Washington.

Cheong Seong-jang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute, said: “It shows North Korea’s intention to neutralise the missile defence system of South Korea and the United States with multiple simultaneous attacks during emergency.”

Analysts have warned Kim could speed up nuclear testing plans to distract North Korea’s population from the disastrous Covid outbreak.

Despite struggling with the rampant Covid outbreak, the country has resumed construction on a long-dormant nuclear reactor, according to new satellite pictures.

South Korea said Pyongyang carried out tests of a nuclear detonation device in preparation for its first nuclear test since 2017.

And the move comes barely a day after South Korea and the US wrapped up three-day exercises involving the USS Ronald Reagan, a 100,000-tonne nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The exercises were the first joint military drills since South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol took office last month – and the first involving an aircraft carrier since November 2017.

Pyongyang has long protested against the joint exercises, branding them rehearsals for invasion.

Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies, said Sunday’s missile launches were most likely a response to the US-South Korea manoeuvres.

“It seems that they fired eight missiles because the scale of the joint drills has expanded in their view,” he told AFP.

Last month, US President Joe Biden said he would deploy “strategic assets” to South Korea if necessary to defend itself from the North.

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Pyongyang test-fired three missiles, including possibly its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, just days after Biden left South Korea following his summit with Yoon.

Long-range and nuclear tests have been paused since Kim Jong-un met Donald Trump for high-profile negotiations that collapsed in 2019.

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NORTH Korea has fired eight ballistic missiles

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Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale 2022: 15 Best Last-Minute Deals Up to 60% Off

Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale 2022: 15 Best Last-Minute Deals Up to 60% Off | Entertainment Tonight

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Tech

Dave Clark, Amazon’s consumer CEO, resigns

The chief executive of Amazon’s consumer business will step down next month after more than two decades, the e-commerce giant announced in a blog post Friday and reflected in a regulatory filing.

“I’ve had an incredible time at Amazon but it’s time for me to build again,” David Clark said in a tweet Friday, where he shared a screenshot of an email he sent to his team. “For some time, I have discussed my intent to transition out of Amazon with my family and others close to me, but I wanted to ensure the teams were setup for success,” he wrote in the farewell email.

The announcement marks the second high-profile departure in as many days in the tech world. On Wednesday, Sheryl Sandberg — one of the highest-ranking women in corporate America — announced she was stepping down as chief operating officer of Facebook, the company she helped transform into a digital-advertising behemoth.

Amazon warehouse workers suffer serious injuries at higher rates than other firms

Amazon declined to comment beyond the company blog and Clark’s note. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Clark’s ascending career at Amazon mirrored the company’s sprawling growth; he began as an operations manager, then moved up to a regional general manager position, and eventually oversaw the tech giant’s entire worldwide consumer business. When he joined the company, Amazon had just six fulfillment centers. It has since swelled into a corporate colossus, raking in $470 billion in sales last year and is valued among the elite club of trillion-dollar companies. Its operations now span online shopping, groceries, streaming, gadgets and Web services.

But Clark’s tenure, which began in 1999, has also been marked by a host of legal, regulatory and labor issues that have drawn the national spotlight on Amazon, the nation’s second-largest private employer.

Unionization pushes at a Bessemer, Ala., warehouse and in New York have served as the basis for a resurgent labor movement that is reverberating in the retail and technology sectors. Amazon workers involved in the union drives have advocated for higher pay, expanded benefits and better treatment for staff — including more breaks and less-intense surveillance of their daily habits. The company counts more than 1,000 U.S. warehouses.

As concerns about working conditions at Amazon increased in frequency, including criticism from legislators, Clark was sometimes quick to defend the company. “I often say we are the Bernie Sanders of employers, but that’s not quite right because we actually deliver a progressive workplace,” Clark said in a tweet that he later deleted.

In June 2021, Clark announced Amazon’s intentions to become “Earth’s Best Employer,” pledging in a blog post to make Amazon a safer place to work and to soften the company’s emphasis on productivity metrics. The post was an update to an announcement made by Bezos two months earlier in a shareholder letter. But a report later found that the injury rate for workers at Amazon in 2021 was more than double that of workers in other warehouses.

Clark has headed Amazon’s logistics operation throughout the coronavirus pandemic, rolling out safety protocols to keep warehouses and deliveries in continuous operation but also facing questions about whether the company was accurately and transparently reporting case counts and infection rates. In January 2021, Clark wrote a letter to President Biden offering to help with the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. One month later, the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Amazon accusing the company of “flagrant disregard for health and safety requirements.”

New York sues Amazon alleging ‘flagrant disregard’ of health standards at warehouses

In recent years, Amazon has also become a frequent subject of congressional scrutiny. Investigators on Capitol Hill found that Amazon was among a handful of tech giants that engaged in anti-competitive, monopoly-style tactics and called for sweeping changes to federal laws to empower regulators, according to a 2020 House inquiry that spanned 16 months and culminated in a 450-page report.

In his role as consumer CEO, which he started in January 2021, Clark oversaw a significant portion of Amazon’s business, expanding his logistics and operations responsibilities to include retail and electronics. In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that Amazon would be pulling back on expansion in some of those arenas, including shuttering much of its bricks-and-mortar retail footprint, because of slowed growth.

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Video

YouTube TV launches new Spanish-language plans

YouTube TV is rolling out two new Spanish-language offerings: Spanish Plan and Spanish Plus. While the $34.99 / month standalone Spanish Plan provides access to an all-Spanish lineup of channels on YouTube TV, Spanish Plus is a $14.99 / month add-on for users already subscribed to the YouTube TV Base Plan.

Spanish Plan subscribers gain access to over 28 channels (all of which you can view on this page), including ESPN Deportes, Fox Deportes, CNN Español, and Discovery en Español. The Spanish Plus add-on is advertised as having a slightly more limited selection of over 25 networks, but that’s just because YouTube TV already bundles Univision, UniMás, and Galavisión in its Base Plan.

YouTube TV announced the addition of these three channels to its Base Plan last year and also hinted at launching the Spanish-language subscriptions that it’s rolling out now. It added a $5.99 / month add-on for Pantaya as well, a streaming service that caters to Spanish-speaking audiences.

YouTube says subscribers between now and November 10th can sign up for the Spanish Plan for $24.99 for the first six months, or $9.99 / month for the first six months of Spanish Plus. Other streaming services that offer live TV channels, such as Hulu and Sling TV, also have Spanish-language add-ons, but YouTube TV’s Spanish Plus add-on and its standalone Spanish Plan still seem to have more Spanish-language channels. Earlier this year, Univision rolled out its own Spanish-language streaming service, Vix, with a free and paid plan including over 100 linear channels.

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Entertaintment

Realscreen » Archive » Tim Allen, Richard Karn, April Wilkerson return to History with “More Power”

A+E Networks’ History Channel will once again reunite Tim Allen with his former Home Improvement co-star Richard Karn via the non-fiction series More Power, which premieres on June 29.

The 10-episode series, which also co-stars YouTube DIY woodworking personality April Wilkerson, will take place in Allen’s home shop, where the hosts will explore the history of the coolest, most powerful and iconic tools. Each episode will focus on a different tool, from blades and batteries to magnets and lasers, and trace how they evolved from handheld and basic to industrial and mighty while also explaining such phenomena as how a magnet can light up a whole city.

The trio will also venture into the field to play with some of the biggest machines that power our everyday lives, and meet the men and women who operate them. Allen will also invite experts into his shop for “Tim’s Maker Challenge,” tasking them to create new builds for unique tools like an automatic leaf-vacuum-rake that sucks up leaves and puts them directly into the garbage, or a battery-powered mobile kitchen.

This is the second series featuring the trio to air on History and is effectively, pardon the pun, a retooling of the previous program. Assembly Required, unveiled in 2020, aired in 2021. According to an A+E spokesperson, “Assembly Required was produced during the throes of the pandemic to continue to deliver great content until we were able to safely produce More Power as originally intended.”

The new series, like Assembly Required, is produced by Wheelhouse subsidiary Spoke Studios (which recently hired former Shed Media general manager Pam Healy as president) and Boxing Cat Entertainment. Allen and Karn are executive producers, along with Brent Montgomery, Eric Wattenberg, Will Nothacker, Joe Weinstock, K.P. Anderson, Cindy Kain and Katherine D. Fox. Eli Lehrer, Mary E. Donahue and Max Micallef serve as executive producers for History.

(With files from Barry Walsh)

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Movies

17 "Glee" Tweets That Have Me Convinced Mr. Schue Should Have Lost His Teaching License

Right to jail.

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Film

Missing Pieces: Why Film Festivals Treat Programmers as Disposable

While the industry relies on programmers, they have never been treated as more disposable. What would it take to change that?

With layoffs at Netflix and leadership shakeups at Warner Bros. Discovery, the needs of film festival programmers might sound like a low priority. At least, that’s the kind of thinking that’s created a huge predicament for this profession, and one that’s become acute as festivals slim their budgets to attempt post-COVID comebacks.

A few weeks ago, this column addressed the way the job of the programmer has been marginalized by the industry, and at Cannes last month, many people told me they were clamoring for a follow-up.

For the sliver of the film community that doesn’t work with multimillion marketing budgets, festivals are a critical launchpad. The international festival calendar is roaring back to action, as Cannes made clear. The cocktail events teased everything from upcoming editions of Locarno in August to TIFF in the fall, with the latter bringing the majority of its robust new programming team to the south of France.

Cannes was brimming with confidence about the need for the in-person festivals around the world. During the first weekend, I moderated a conversation about the future of festivals with 30West executive Trevor Groth, who served as director of programming for Sundance for years, and asked him to address reports that the Park City event planned to retain its hybrid format next year.

“It’s a tough one,” he said. “One of the things they said was that they reached more people than ever, which is a good talking point. But how much of an impact did that have on those people versus when you have the in-person festival? There was a certain type of movie I didn’t love until I went to a film festival. Certain types of films, if they’re presented at a festival, you savor them and appreciate them in a different way. I think that happens at film festivals far more than with someone streaming it at home, when they might not have the patience to finish it.”

As Groth points out, festivals advocate for certain movies to have a place in the culture and business of movies.

But there is little in the way of a support system for the people who pick those movies. Programmers of the World United, a loose consortium of programmers from around the world, hosted a packed happy hour on the first day of the festival where frustrations about the lack of infrastructure and respect for the profession were rampant. However, I detected little in the way of mobilization efforts.

An upcoming report from the Film Festival Alliance examines festival staffing, workforce, and compensation, primarily in the U.S. (the full report will be released later this month, but the organization sent it to me in advance). Participating festivals have not been named, but the sample size is formidable: 108 film organizations participated, most of which had annual operating costs of over $500,000.

Most festivals with revenue of $100,000 or more retained staff and independent contractors (16 percent of the festivals are entirely run by volunteers). The report includes some remarkable details about operational structure, inclusivity efforts, and even vaccination policies.

But for the purposes of this column, I was struck by details pertaining to financial security of programming staff. According to the survey, programming director compensation at these festivals range from a low of $500 (insert shock emoji here) to a high of $240,000 (ditto); additionally, the report shows that festivals often spend as much as half of their revenue on director-level compensation.

Meanwhile, so many programmers stitch together their profession in piecemeal that festivals build their budgets around the notion that programming is a disposable piece of the larger whole. As festivals rework their budgets around pandemic-era cuts, the job has never looked more vulnerable. Many festivals struggle to create a programming staff that supports year-round work, which in turn devalues the market for programmers as whole. (Disclosure: IndieWire is owned by Penske Media, a majority stakeholder in SXSW, which has year-round programming staff in addition to freelancers.)

When I wrote in this weekly column about the layoffs at International Film Festival Rotterdam, the festival said in an official statement that it was working toward creating a more sustainable infrastructure that took into account its $2 million euro budget cuts. At Cannes, IFFR announced its new programming team, and its leadership said they finally were ready to talk. So on the first weekend of Cannes, I dropped by the Netherlands Pavilion to sit down with IFFR managing director Marjan Van der Haar and artistic director Vanja Kaludjercic to get their side of the story.

IFFR

“We looked closely at how much a healthy, sustainable percentage of the budget would be the cost of staff,” Van der Haar told me, adding that they looked to the structures of other European festivals operating on a similar scale, including San Sebastian, Locarno, and IDFA. “Then we went back to the drawing board to make an organization which is able to deliver on our future goals.”

Outside of Kaludjercic, the new programming staff is entirely comprised of seasonal contractors. “Financially, this is the way we can assure we’re in a healthy position for the festival we want to deliver, which is still large in scale,” Kaludjercic said.

She added that the freelance structure of the staff was an outgrowth of her own experiences. “My career was exactly like that until just a few years ago,” she said. “I understand the precarity of it, but I also understand how much opportunity it gave me. If it weren’t for freelance gigs of a great variety, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I lived in many places that were really expensive. I know what it’s like when you’re juggling I don’t know how many gigs and nobody’s paying, but I managed to learn about programming because for many years, I was programming in different places.”

This is a business that requires hustle and passion to justify the hard work, but the outcome of IFFR’s belt-tightening is symptomatic of a larger existential threat to the profession. Elsewhere at Cannes, I came across Ava Cahen, the 35-year-old new artistic director of Critics’ Week, whose entire programming committee operates on a volunteer basis.

“I’m going to work on that,” she told me. “When you commit to this work, you have to balance it with other work that brings in revenue. It’s a work of passion, but we need a selection committee that doesn’t put them in a precarious position.”

The irony of all these discussions was the image of Cannes director Thierry Fremaux living like a rock star at Cannes, working the red carpet each day and cavorting with the talent as the crowds looked on. Fremaux embodies Cannes and the decision-making process behind the official selection. Some programmers I know disparaged the festival for not opening up its team to more contributions from the international programming community. “They are protecting the sales agents,” one veteran groused to me, insinuating that the Cannes selection process has more to do with the preferences of the people selling movies than the ones who officially pick them.

Maybe so. But the potential for Cannes to elevate the job of a festival programmer to movie star status is also kind of amazing, and worthy of consideration by the rest of the industry: Programmers serve as the connective tissue between talent and the festival environment. That’s not a disposable role; it’s the one that makes a festival worthwhile in the first place.

But it’s not one that the current festival business model treats as a priority. The problem this creates goes beyond maintaining status quo. It hurts the potential to bring new talent into a field in dire need of diversification. If we want better representation for rising filmmaking voices, there must be considerable investment in the work of programming those films.

If festivals can’t afford year-round staff, the industry should rethink how it allocates its resources to support this profession. It’s not enough to sponsor festivals themselves; a separate fund may be necessary specifically for freelance programmers, and a governing body to sort out how to allocate those funds. It could support programmers who can verify their employment status at multiple festivals, which would take the pressure off individual festivals to figure out Tetris-like solutions to retain staff.

Who’s best suited to organize such support? On the European side, my money’s on the International Federation of Film Producers, which represents the needs of major festivals but has yet to sort out its role on the curatorial side of things. In North America, the Film Festival Alliance has already raised the question of how festivals might better share resources when their programming teams overlap. They would be well-suited to formalize that concept with a centralized fund.

The question of who pays for all this is a thornier one. As the industry looks to a future that treats in-person festivals as a crucial part of their existence, major distributors and other entities reliant on festivals should consider the way that some aspect of their annual budget might support the people whose programming efforts fuel their operations. Contribute to a collective fund and everyone stands to benefit: Festivals retain better programmers and festivals expose audiences to the best films, which enables the industry to support a wider array of cinema.

I don’t expect Netflix or Warner Bros. Discovery to prioritize programmer salaries while considering their vast bottom-line expectations, but that speaks to the disconnect between the programming field and the industry that benefits from its labor.

There are countless grants and other initiatives out there to support filmmakers; there could always be more. But once those movies are made, someone has to give them the platform that gets them seen, and current evidence suggests that if the industry doesn’t spend some money to support that process, nobody else will.

Is there another way to support the programming field through a centralization of resources? Or is the profession fated to collapse in a sea of discontent? Send me your solutions and I might dig into them with a future column: eric@indiewire.com

Browse previous columns here.

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‘The Real’ Finale: Jeannie Mai Jenkins, Adrienne Houghton, Loni Love & Garcelle Beauvais Say Emotional Goodbye

‘The Real’ Finale: Jeannie Mai Jenkins, Adrienne Houghton, Loni Love & Garcelle Beauvais Say Emotional Goodbye | Entertainment Tonight

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What to Watch

6 Letterkenny Characters Who Deserve A Spin-Off After Shoresy

You’re watching Hulu’s new Letterkenny spin-off, Shoresy, the other dayee when you start to wonder what other great side characters from the hit sitcom set in rural Canada might be due for their own show. Well, to be fair (Tooooooo beeeeeee faaaaaaaaaairrrrrrrrrrr!), it can be a bit risky to build a whole new series around a fan-favorite character as what often tends to keep them interesting is their limited amount of appearances.

However, if the sharp-chirpin’, goal-scoring, and formerly faceless title character of Shoresy – portrayed by series creator and Wayne actor Jared Keeso – can lead his own show to great acclaim, I think we can say that Letterkenny cast is pertnear full of characters who could achieve the same success. So, pitter patter, let’s get at er and see who we believe would be the perfect candidates to lead the next installment of this bizarre, hilarious universe – starting with one of the funniest hicks on the series outside of the main four.

(Image credit: Hulu)

McMurray

Much of the funniest moments on Letterkenny involve, in some capacity, the persnickety and sometimes inappropriate “piece of shit” McMurray, played by Dan Petroijevic. The loyal and sometimes overbearing presider of the local Agricultural Hall is also the husband of Mrs. McMurray (Melanie Scrofano) and older brother of Bonnie McMurray (Kamilla Kowall).

In fact, I actually think that McMurray’s sister, his wife, and maybe even his first name should be involved as well if Petroijevic were to reprise the role on a spin-off that could further explore what makes him tick, which is pertnear everything. Of course, he gets especially riled up by misbehaving degens, mistreatment of Canada “gooses,” and when things fall out of their regular organization, such as the way he and Wayne greet each other.

Mark Forward as Coach on Letterkenny

(Image credit: Hulu)

Coach

One such person who did come at odds with McMurray and co. for his mistreatment of Canada “gooses” in the classic Season 4 episode “A Fuss at the Golf Course” is Coach. Played by comedian Mark Forward, he is another character whose full name remains a mystery, as well what caused the untimely passing of his beloved wife, Barb.

Another characteristic that Forward’s fan-favorite Letterkenny role has in common with McMurray is a short-temper, especially after his hockey team – originally the Letterkenny Shamrocks and currently the No Regretskys – suffer a tough loss which he is quick to call “fucking embarrassing!” My desire to hear Coach deliver his immortal catchphrase more often alone is why I think he deserves a spin-off, even if Hulu already gave one Letterkenny hockey player his own show.

The Ginger And Boots on Letterkenny

(Image credit: Hulu)

The Ginger And Boots

Say, speaking of Shoresy, he is not the only Letterkenny side character whose anonymity (particularly of the face in his case) has been a defining characteristic. For instance, we still do not actually know the names of the actors who play The Ginger and Boots (who are apparently buddies with Jared Keeso in real life), nor do we actually get to see them on the show very often, let alone speak much dialogue.

The famed (and infamous) fighting duo’s main contribution to the series has been through town gossip that suggests one (or, perhaps, even both of them) performed an indecent act on an ostrich (“allegedly”), which is why their talents are only called upon in case of emergencies. Perhaps we could get to the bottom of how that rumor started in their own spin-off series that would likely feature some epic fisticuffs to prove if they really are tough or just “10-ply.”

Kaniehtiio 'Tiio' Horn as Tanis on Letterkenny

(Image credit: Hulu)

Tanis

One such person who did come at odds with The Ginger and Boots during one of the emergencies that called for their enlistment in the classic Season 2 episode “The Native Flu” was Tanis. The fierce leader of the Natives and fierce protector of the First Nations reserve (or “The Rez”) that exists just outside of Letterkenny is played by Kaniehtiio “Tiio” Horn.

Tanis is, in my opinion, the toughest non-hick character on Letterkenny for her willingness to engage in a fight (either verbal or physical) with anyone (including even Wayne while they were dating) and at just about any time – save whenever she would need a moment to let her nails dry. It is always a treat to see her show up in an episode either as a recurring character, a series regular, or a guest, which is why I would give a Texas-sized 10-4 to the idea of a show that puts her in the spotlight.

Jared Abrahamson on Letterkenny

(Image credit: Hulu)

Jake

You know, one other great reason to give Tanis her own spin-off would be to shed light on what goes on in the Letterkenny universe from a different cultural perspective, specifically that of the Natives at the Rez in this case. For that same reason, I would be interested in seeing a series that is told from the persective of Wayne and Katy’s (Michelle Mylett) “cousin’t” from the U.S.A, Jake.

Actor Jared Abrahamson made his first appearance as the comically hyper-patriotic, Michigan-born “Yank” in Season 8, in which he gives his service in the U.S. military as an explanation for his absence until then. Now, I have always been against the idea of doing an American remake of Letterkenny – citing a few failed American remakes of classic U.K. comedies as examples – but do believe that the next best thing might be a Stateside spin-off starring Jake as the main protagonist.

Dycks on Letterkenny

(Image credit: Hulu)

The Dyck Family

Now, if we really want to talk about exploring cultural differences in the Letterkenny universe, there may be no discussion more potent than that of the Dycks. This family of local Mennonites is made up of Noah (Jonathan Torrens), his wife Anita (former The Walking Dead cast member Sarah Wayne Callies), his sister Lovina (Brooke Bruce), daughters Chastity (Olivia Collili) and Charity (Cora Eckert), and two sons whose names I anticipate will be equally hilarious when they are finally revealed.

However, the double-entendres do not stop at the names of each family member as there is something to bust a gut over in just about every line of dialogue they speak, which is why Season 8’s “Holy Sheet” – which is all about the Mennonites’ misleading the Hicks with unintentional innuendos – is one of the funniest and simply best Letterkenny episodes yet in my opinion. I wish that we could see more Dycks in every episode, but understand why that likely would not happen, so maybe they could be made the focus of the next spin-off.

Now, you might be saying that I should probably take about 20 percent off the top before I start throwing airballs over the topic of another Letterkenny spin-off. Well, I guess we could stop here before you get all gutty about it. In the meantime, until we see the Dycks standing tall on their own series, Shoresy and all 10 seasons of Letterkenny are now available to stream on Hulu.

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You’re watching Hulu’s new Letterkenny spin-off, Shoresy,

Awards

Netflix True Crime Emmy Contenders – Deadline

There are times when swiping right goes all wrong.

Such was the case with a number of women who came across the Tinder profile of a man calling himself Simon Leviev. He was handsome, romantic, and apparently fabulously rich, the self-described son of a billionaire diamond broker. Norwegian beauty Cecilie Fjellhøy swiped right to signal her interest in meeting Simon, not realizing that gesture would put her in the clutches of a con man.

The story of how Leviev inveigled women to surrender massive sums of money to him is told in the Netflix documentary film The Tinder Swindler, a massive hit on the streaming platform and one of several Emmy-contending Netflix projects that fall on the true crime spectrum. At a Netflix FYSEE panel discussion, director Felicity Morris explained how Leviev hooked his prey.

He came across as “Prince Charming, swept them off their feet, took them on these incredible first dates. I mean, he was the perfect boyfriend at first,” Morris said. “We called it ‘the Simon experience’ that these women had. And then slowly but surely, he manipulated them into handing over thousands and thousands of dollars.”

Morris appeared on the panel with Joshua Rofé, director of the film Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed, and Chris Smith, director of the docuseries Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. The later documentary series focuses on New York restaurateur Sarma Melngailis, who launched the popular vegan eatery Pure Food and Wine. Then a mystery man calling himself Shane Fox came into her life, offering romance and – thanks to his purported great wealth – a way out of her restaurant’s financial conundrum.

“For us, the thing that was interesting was just trying to understand the psychology of the journey that [Sarma] went on from beginning to end,” Smith commented. “She was under $2 million of debt on the restaurant and working insanely to keep this dream of hers going and moving forward… I think [Fox] recognized that that was so important to her. And so then he was able to capitalize on that by making it seem like he would be the solution to those problems.”

Instead, he managed to convince her to fork over $1.7 million from the business. Eventually, both Fox (real name Anthony Strangis) and Melngailis were charged with fraud but went on the run (hence the “fugitive” reference in the subtitle). Smith interviewed Melngailis extensively and also drew from audio conversations between her and Fox where he appeared to bully and threaten her repeatedly.

“I think without that, it would have been very difficult to tell the story because you have somebody just telling you this is what happened,” Smith said. “To actually live through it through the audio was the thing that I think tipped the scales for us in terms of getting involved [in the series].”

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed tells what ostensibly should be a light and joyful story of the unexpected rise of beloved bushy-haired art teacher Bob Ross, who became a hit on public television with his gentle painting instruction shows. The true crime element enters the picture with allegations that Ross’s business partners took advantage of him, and after his death kept Ross’s heirs from seeing any profits from Ross-branded merchandise.

“Any time money is involved with art, obviously, if you stay in business long enough, things are inevitably going to go wrong,” Rofé noted. “[This] is what history has shown us.”

In the film, Ross’s business partners are described as very litigious. The director said that didn’t deter him from completing his documentary.

“Before a doc goes out the door, there is just like two brick walls of lawyers who look at everything and vet everything and question everything that we’ve done to the end of the Earth and back to make sure that everything can pass muster and is legit,” Rofé said. “So, I felt like even if they sued us, we’d be fine. I wasn’t really concerned with that.”

The Tinder Swindler shows how some of Simon Leviev’s victims joined forces to bring him to justice. Morris tells the story from the point of view of these women.

“I just felt that the victims of these kinds of emotional crimes were often dismissed. Certainly, when Cecilie [Fjellhøy] and Pernilla [Sjöholm] went to the cops, they just sort of laughed at them, ‘Oh, I’m sorry that your boyfriend’s done this to you,’” Morris said. “We just felt that telling the story very much through their eyes, not giving [Simon] any kind of platform, was the way to do it.”

Watch the full panel discussion in the video above.

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Music

Kim Kardashian Is Already Facing Backlash Over Her Skin-Care Line, SKKN by Kim

Kim Kardashian’s newly announced skin-care line, SKKN by Kim, is facing controversy over its name.

On June 1, Kardashian, who struggles with psoriasis, introduced her first round of products as “a rejuvenating nine-product skin-care ritual” with “refillable packaging, and clean, science-backed ingredients designed to nourish all skin types, tones, and textures at all stages of maturity.”

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However, Kardashian is being called out over the similarity between her line’s name and two Black-owned beauty brands: SKKN+ and Lori Harvey’s skin-care line SKN by LH.

Back in August 2021, Forbes reported that aesthetician Cyndie Lunsford filed a cease and desist letter after Kardashian’s Kimsaprincess Inc. filed to trademark “SKKN” for her upcoming beauty line. According to Lunsford’s legal team, Lunsford established SKKN+ in 2018 and filed for a trademark of her own in 2021. Documents show that Lunsford filed for the trademark on March 28, 2021.

“I have painstakingly built my successful small business with my own sweat equity, hard work, and research. It’s clear that I established my brand first,” Lunsford said in an email to Forbes at the time. “As a young black woman, my mission with SKKN+ is to provide quality skincare and curated full-body experiences to enhance each client’s self-care regimen. The (+) represents a hands-on transformative aesthetic experience that elevates the body, mind, and spirit.”

Lunsford’s attorney Erik M. Pelton added, “It is hard to believe that Kardashian’s team either did not know about the prior use of SKKN+ or knew and adopted the SKKN brand name anyways to steamroll a small minority business.”

On top of that, Harvey launched her own skin-care line, SKN by LH, in 2021. “I have rosacea and would struggle to find the right products to use,” she told Vogue in October 2021. “Then I got into modeling, and between shoots and backstage at runway shows you have so much makeup being put on your face. My skin was constantly going through it. So after using, like, 20 different products on my face at one time, I felt like there had to be a simpler way for me to get my skin looking the way I wanted it to.”

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June 5, 2022

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Kim Kardashian's newly announced skin-care line, SKKN

Docs

ICYMI: Making the Oscar Winning Short ‘If Anything Happens I Love You’

In this special guest post originally published in 2020, Michael Govier and Will McCormack talk about the making of their Best Animated Short winner If Anything Happens I Love You. The short is currently available to stream on Netflix.

***

We met in the most unlikely of places: an acting class in the Valley. We became fast friends. And since we’re both writers, we would meet in the park for avocado sandwiches to volley new ideas, as writers do. We were both interested in writing about grief and wrestling with the loss in our own lives. We’re both fascinated by how human beings grieve—how we face it, endure it, survive it and hopefully, prevail.

During one avocado sandwich, Michael pitched an idea about shadows, and how shadows in our story could represent the feelings that the characters could not reach because they were consumed with pain. This was our jumping off point. Will loved this Jungian visualization—connecting with our shadow-self is uncomfortable and often agonizing, but essential to our survival, healing and growth. It immediately ticked two story boxes, theme and animation. We could both feel it and see it instantly. This was the beginning of If Anything Happens I Love You.

Again and again, we read about the senseless, horrific gun violence that kills children in our country. We felt called to write about this tragedy. How do you face the loss of a child? How does one survive that unthinkable pain? We found this proverb: “When your parent dies, you bury in them in the ground. But when your child dies, you bury them in your heart.” We pinned it to the top our story corkboard and got to work.

This is very serious material. So, we took it seriously. We knew we had to get it just right. We spent about a year on the script, which is only 12 pages. We would not have the luxury that Will had at Pixar, where he worked for years developing story ideas [including Toy Story 4 -ed.] that emerged from the artwork. We did not have that time or money when it came to production. We needed a tight script, so we wrote one.

We then did more homework by watching and re-watching about 100 animated short films. We broke them all down, what worked, what didn’t and what inspired us. That research led us to finding our film’s style. We knew we wanted it to be 2D, spare and lean, inspired a lot by Michael DuDok de Wit’s gorgeous Oscar winning short “Father and Daughter.” We talked endlessly about color. Monochromatic at the top, and then slowly build in color, but through the lens of grief. And we knew we wanted no dialogue. The story could work perfectly, better, without it. We talked about how music would carry the film.

‘If Anything Happens I Love You’

We finished the script and had a clear vision of the style. Now we needed a producer. An experienced one. Will called his agent Keya Khayatian at UTA and he introduced us to Maryann Garger, who has worked in animation, prolifically, for over three decades. Maryann said “yes” immediately and has been the film’s guardian angel, tireless producer and veteran leader. When making a movie, sometimes you get lucky. And we were really lucky to meet Maryann.

Then we needed money. And we couldn’t find any. We went to every studio in town, and everyone said no. So, we did what any reckless independent filmmaker does: we decided to finance the animatic ourselves.

We contacted Maija Burnett at Cal Arts, sent her the script and asked her to connect us with artists who may be good fit. Which is when we had our second stroke of wild good luck. We met Youngran Nho, who is an absolute star. We met her over avocado toast this time. She immediately understood the depth of feeling, style and tempo. We were astonished and delighted by her art.

Maryann connected us with the master editor Peter Ettinger who graciously jumped on board. The last piece we were missing was our composer. We landed Lindsay Marcus, who is supremely talented. Lindsay’s delicate, thoughtful and driving score was a big piece to the puzzle.

With the animatic in hand, we held a fundraiser at UTA. Gary Gilbert of Gilbert Films was in attendance. Gary was so moved by the film, he made production possible through the Fiscal Sponsorship at Film Independent. We had enough money to complete the film. With Film Independent and Gilbert Films, were able to hire two other animators Haein Michelle Heo and Julia Rodrigues, who worked beautifully with Youngran.

The filmmaking process was exhilarating. Our all-female animation team was knocking it out of the park. We established a cardinal rule, which was that anything that did not need to be in frame shouldn’t be. We kept making the film leaner and tighter. Stripping it to its essential elements. And it was working.

Then the great Laura Dern came on, as did her brilliant producing partner Jayme Lemons. We connected with Everytown For Gun Safety, who endorsed the film and became our champion.

Everytown and Laura Dern hosted a screening of the completed film at UTA. At that screening survivors of gun violence attended, as were parents were there who had lost children to gun violence. It was the most rewarding moment of our careers because the film spoke to them. We had captured loss and its aftermath. Hopefully, this story can provide connection and communion. We felt that that night.

That night was March 4. On March 7 we flew to the Omaha for our only in-person festival screening. We won best animated short. We were very excited to continue on the film festival circuit.

Then, on March 10… COVID hit.

We are still in the midst of so much loss and pain and grief. The film has done and is doing well on the festival circuit and this year it has been virtual, drive-ins and socially distanced events. We have played at 38 film festivals in a pandemic. We were delighted to have won the Oscar Qualifying Grand Jury Prize at the Edmonton International Film Festival. We wish could have been in person at all of them, nonetheless we are grateful for the wonderful response the film has received.

The next blessing the film received was Netflix wanted to watch it. After screening virtually at Netflix, Gregg Taylor and the good people over there acquired it. Now the film is streaming on Netflix for over 200 million see.

Film Independent made it all possible. We are grateful to them, avocados and all the people who have shared their pain, grief and LOVE with us. By sharing it, it binds us and makes us stronger as a human race. For more information about the film, please visit our website.

To learn more about Fiscal Sponsorship, including its benefits and eligibility requirements by visiting our website. See which projects are currently being supported via our Sponsored Projects page.

Film Independent Artist Development promotes unique independent voices by helping filmmakers create and advance new work. To support our work with a donation, please click here. Become a Member of Film Independent here.

Keep up with Film Independent…

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Global

Dozens Killed and Hundreds Burned in Bangladesh Depot Disaster

DHAKA, Bangladesh — At least 39 people were killed and hundreds more suffered burns when a fire at a container depot in Bangladesh set off a series of explosions, officials said on Sunday.

Many people were in critical condition in hospital burn wards, according to local officials, who feared the death toll would rise. By noon, firefighters were still trying to contain the blaze, which began around 10:45 p.m. Saturday at B.M. Container Depot in the town of Sitakunda, about 10 miles from Chattogram, Bangladesh’s main port.

After the first firefighters arrived, a large explosion rocked the depot, causing the flames to spread. At least five firefighters were killed in that blast, and 14 others were wounded, officials said. More explosions followed, continuing well into Sunday morning.

The cause of the disaster, at one of Bangladesh’s largest inland container depots, was not immediately clear. Attempts to contact executives at the company that runs the depot were not immediately successful.

Shahadat Hossain, the senior government official for Sitakunda, said that a large amount of hydrogen peroxide may have been stored at the depot, along with other goods. “We cannot say anything further right now,” he said.

Hundreds of people were admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital, said Dr. Mohammed Elias Chowdhury, the civil surgeon for Chattogram, which is also known as Chittagong. “Many of them are critical,” he said. “Some people have 60 to 70 percent burns on their bodies.”

Photos from the hospital showed wounded people laid out on the floor, waiting for treatment. Dr. Chowdhury said all leave had been canceled for doctors and other staff members at the hospital.

Hasan Mahmud Arafat, 25, a university student who volunteered to help at the hospital, said all beds in the burn units were full and that ambulance sirens had blared all night.

“I saw thousands of people come to the hospital to donate blood,” he said. “I saw locals come to the hospital with hand fans — they were fanning the patients who were waiting to get a bed or who were admitted to the makeshift beds.”

Mass-casualty fires have been a recurring problem in Bangladesh. In July, a factory fire in the city of Narayanganj killed at least 51 people.

Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.

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DHAKA, Bangladesh — At least 39 people

Trending

Queen Elizabeth II Appears with Paddington Bear in Jubilee Short: Watch!

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Queen Elizabeth II delighted her royal subjects Saturday with the debut of a special Jubilee short in which she acts alongside none other than… Paddington Bear!

The film, a rare example of the monarch trying her hand at acting, finds the Queen trading lines with the animated bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw.

In the clip, Paddington congratulates Queen Elizabeth on her birthday — she just turned 96 — and the two chat about their mutual admiration for marmalade sandwiches.

Pics! Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations

“I keep mine in here,” she says, retrieving one from her handbag.

At the end, the two tap a China teacup, a beat that turns into Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

Watch the short:

The unveiling of the surprise clip preceded a massive concert in honor of the Queen, including performances by Queen, Diana Ross, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys and more.

Sadly, the Queen has sat out most of the Jubilee festivities due to “discomfort” she has been experiencing.

The Palace said of the Paddington short, “Her Majesty is well known for her sense of humour, so it should be no surprise that she decided to take part in tonight’s sketch. There was an interest in the filming and animation process and the opportunity to invite a famous bear to tea was just too much fun to miss. While The Queen may not be attending the concert in person, she was very keen that people understood how much it meant to her and that all those watching had a great time.”

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June 5, 2022

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Tech

Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary to Launch ‘The Video Archives Podcast’

Longtime friends and filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary will launch their first podcast next month on which they’ll revisit some of their favorite old B-movies and discover new ones.

Set to premiere July 19, “The Video Archives Podcast” will feature the duo rewatching and discussing movies pulled from the actual collection of VHS tapes that they used to recommend to customers when they worked at the original location of the iconic Video Archives movie rental store in Manhattan Beach, Calif., almost 40 years ago. It’s being produced with SiriusXM podcast subsidiary Stitcher.

Tarantino and Avary met at the Video Archives in 1983 where they shared a love of lesser-known films. Their encyclopedic knowledge of movies made them local celebrities, before they would go on to collaborate on the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Pulp Fiction.” Tarantino acquired the Video Archives in 1995 and rebuilt the store in his home.

The podcast will feature Tarantino and Avary waxing cinematic about movies including “Dark Star,” “Moonraker,” “Demonoid, “Messenger of Death” and “Piranha.” They’ll be joined by podcast announcer Gala Avary, who is Roger’s daughter.

Listen to the podcast trailer:

“The Video Archives Podcast” is produced by Josh Richmond and Gala Avary, and engineered by Devon Bryant, with executive producers Colin Anderson and Natalie Mooallem. Earwolf, Stitcher’s comedy podcast network, will provide production support.

In a joint statement, Tarantino and Avary said: “We never imagined that 30 years after we worked together behind the counter at Video Archives, we would be together again doing the exact same thing we did back then: talking passionately about movies on VHS.”

They continued, “Watching movies was what originally brought us together and made us friends, and it’s our love of movies that still brings us together today. So we surrounded ourselves with the original Video Archives collection, where we both worked before we became celebrated filmmakers, and time-traveled ourselves back to the golden age of VHS. We love to discuss movies, and we want to welcome you into the Video Archives Podcast to hang with us and Archives’ new employee Gala, and discover the hidden VHS gems on our shelves.”

SXM Media, the combined advertising revenue organization of Sirius XM Holdings Inc., has exclusive global ad sales rights for “The Video Archives Podcast.” The show will be available on Stitcher, the SXM App, and all major podcast listening platforms. “The Video Archives Podcast” is repped by WME and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.

“Quentin and Roger have made such enduring marks on filmmaking, and it’s remarkable to think that it all goes back to a video rental store in Manhattan Beach,” commented Scott Greenstein, chief content officer at SiriusXM.

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June 5, 2022

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Longtime friends and filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and

Video

Emma-Jean Thackray: Abbey Road Amplify x Pitchfork London Sessions | Video

Emma-Jean Thackray was invited by Abbey Road Studios and Pitchfork to record a session around her performance at the inaugural Pitchfork Music Festival London. This session was recorded in celebration of Abbey Road Studios 90th Anniversary and the inaugural Pitchfork Music Festival London.

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June 5, 2022

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Emma-Jean Thackray was invited by Abbey Road

Entertaintment

Amber Heard Rented VA Home for $22.5k Per Month During Trial

Amber Heard says she’s buried under legal bills — including the $8.3 mil she owes Johnny Depp — but during the trial, she spared no expense to keep herself and her family in the lap of luxury.

TMZ has learned Amber made this 13,000-square-foot Virginia mansion her home away from home — it’s about 25 minutes away from the Fairfax County Courthouse where the 6-week trial took place. The acre of land the house sits on has its own tennis court, professional home movie theater, and a fitness room with a spa.

While records don’t include her name, they do show the home was rented on May 4 for $22,500 a month.

It’s unclear if she was staying there prior to May 4 — the trial started on April 11 — but witnesses in the neighborhood tell us Amber had been at the home with her daughter, Oonagh Paige, her mom and her sister, Whitney.

We’re told Amber’s security detail was also visibly present on the property.

As you know, Amber’s now stuck with a judgment of over $8 million, and while her lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, says they intend to appeal … Amber says she doesn’t have the money to pay Johnny.

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June 5, 2022

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Movies

Movies in Theaters (June 2022)

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Certified Fresh

a self-important body horror misfire from Alex Garland

Alex Garland’s Men, though home to some gruesome body horror effects, is a meandering, self-important approach to allegorical horror that misses its metaphorical mark.

Between Midsommar, X, Hereditary, The Lighthouse, and Lamb, A24 has more than cemented itself as the go-to studio for strange, genre-bending horror flicks, and their latest collaboration with Alex Garland, Men, is no exception. Revered for his previous success with surreal thrillers Ex Machina and Annihilation, the promise of Men – an eerie slow-burn horror about trauma and misogyny – seemed like another surefire hit for both Garland and A24. Tragically, Men is a notable misstep in A24’s horror hot streak – a self-important approach to feminist horror that (though boasting some truly gruesome effects) falls short of meaningful commentary and spine-tingling horror.

Starring Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear, Men follows Harper (Buckley), a traumatized young woman who takes a trip to the quaint English countryside to get a fresh start after the suicide of her abusive husband, James (Paapa Essiedu). Though, at first the secluded cottage in a sleepy town seems like the perfect escape for the haunted Harper, she quickly becomes the victim of a stalker (Kinnear) after an unsettling encounter in the woods. As the village townspeople slowly morph from harmless to menacing, Harper struggles to cope with her unacknowledged trauma – and escape the night with her life.

It must be acknowledged that – for all of Men‘s failures – not a single ill word can be said about neither Buckley nor Kinnear, both of whom turn in outstanding performances that give the film its few moments of genuine terror and brilliance. Of course, Jessie Buckley’s Harper is the beating heart of the film. It should come as no shock that Buckley delivers yet another grade-A performance, but she’s able to help bring warmth and relatability to Harper’s bare-bones character.

It’s frustrating to see a film so intent on proving itself feminist give its female protagonist so little to do. Still, Harper is a walking stereotype and singularly defined by the trauma inflicted on her by the men in her life. Though she does have moments of resistance and strength, she spends most of the film on the defensive – never truly able to take control of her narrative or even find vindication for her traumatic past. The sheer lack of character depth could also be a byproduct of the deliberately unsettling, murky tone that permeates the entire film, but for Harper’s character to be sacrificed in the name of aesthetic and allegorical value is disheartening, to say the least.

Still, even with the bare-bones material she’s given, Buckley more than pulls her weight – an impressive feat considering she has far and away the most screen time and is often the only character speaking in most scenes. That being said, though, Buckley’s performance wouldn’t be nearly as dynamic if she wasn’t playing off the jack-of-all-trades brilliance that is Rory Kinnear, who plays almost every inhabitant in the town with whom Harper interacts.

Though we struggle with the script’s attempted metaphorical message overall – especially in regards to how it positions Harper and her ex-husband, the decision to have a single actor play almost every other male character in the film is undoubtedly a brilliant one that adds a menacing air to the film – an ever-present awareness in both Harper and the audiences’ minds that it’s her against the rest of the world.

Among Kinnear’s arsenal of characters are a kindly homeowner, a mischievous schoolboy, and a leery priest – and though the writing overall doesn’t allow for much character exploration, Kinnear commits wholeheartedly to bringing as much depth and dimension to each individual persona as possible. While some men of the village – like the priest – are unquestionably villainous, there’s a strange empathy and relatability that Kinnear is able to invoke with a number of his performances that makes it difficult to root entirely against the multi-faced monsters, even if things do take a nasty turn in the final act.

Speaking of the film’s final act, the last half hour is the film’s most memorable – thanks in large part to a particularly gruesome, demented procession of bloody visuals that will make even those with the most iron-clad stomachs squirm. While the effects are certainly top-notch, and the pacing makes for a suitably scary finale (if the film’s only genuine foray into the horror genre), the metaphorical meaning behind the constant birth, death, and birth of the men chasing Harper feels underdeveloped and flimsy.

Men has the frustrating tendency to set up so many visual and narrative elements – the flashback and flash-forwards to Harper’s husband’s suicide, a number of religious images from varying backgrounds, and pagan birth rituals, to name a few – and then neglect to pay them off or resolve their placement in any meaningful way. Though the visuals will certainly cement a place for Men in horror history, and Rory Kinnear’s multi-role performance creates a singular dread that will stick with us, there just isn’t enough substance or tact put into Men to make it the allegorical folk horror masterpiece it could’ve been.

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Alex Garland’s Men, though home to

Kellyanne Conway’s Memoir Sales Low After Trump Blasts Her

Kellyanne Conway’s memoir “Here’s the Deal,” detailing her time as Donald Trump’s campaign manager and political adviser, has sold 25,003 copies since its May 24 debut.

Despite reaching the No. 1 spot on the New York Times’ best sellers’ list, the 500-page volume’s sales fell short in comparison to other White House tell-all memoirs.

As reported by the Intelligencer, Mary Trump’s explosive book about her uncle “Too Much and Never Enough” flew off the shelves, with 950,000 copies sold in its first 24 hours. Groundbreaking journalist Bob Woodward’s “Rage” sold 600,000 units in its first week.

Trump had harsh words for Conway’s memoir, which includes an anecdote about how the former Commander in Chief considered dropping out of the 2016 race weeks before Election Day. In an excerpt published prior to the book’s release, Conway writes that he thought about pulling out after the infamous Access Hollywood tape emerged, but that she persuaded him to stay in the running.

At the time the excerpt was published, Trump’s chief spokesperson Liz Harrington told The Daily Beast that Conway’s recollection of that moment was “totally false.” After its publication, on May 26, Trump aired his own views on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Kellyanne Conway never told me that she thought we lost the election. If she had I wouldn’t have dealt with her any longer – she would have been wrong – could go back to her crazy husband,” Trump wrote, referencing Conway’s husband George Conway, who has been extraordinarily vocal about being anti-Trump. “Writing books can make people say some very strange things.”

Kellyanne Conway Claims Donald Trump Considered Dropping Out of 2016 Race Over ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape

Still, “Here’s the Deal” fared much better than memoirs published by other White House figures, including Chris Christie (less than 3,000 sold in its first week) and most recently Meghan McCain.

Citing an NPD Book Scan provided to Secrets, the Washington Examiner reported that McCain’s “Bad Republican” memoir sold a measly 244 copies in the first few days.

McCain, a former host on “The View” and the daughter of John McCain, has claimed that “Bad Republican” is a hit audiobook and that the hard copy was only intended as a “collectible for people who have already downloaded and consumed it.”

If the numbers are accurate, Conway’s memoir has already outsold McCain’s 100 times over.

Tucker Carlson Accuses Biden of Wanting to Punish Russia ‘as Payback for Getting Trump Elected’ (Video)

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Kellyanne Conway’s memoir “Here’s the Deal,” detailing

What to Watch

Westworld Season 4 Poster Revealed Alongside James Marsden’s Return

HBO released the poster for Westworld Season 4 during its headlining ATX TV festival closing night event. The panel saw Lisa Joy (Co-Creator, Writer, Director, and Executive Producer), Alison Schapker (Writer and Executive Producer), and stars Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Hemsworth, Angela Sarafyan, and Aurora Perrineau discuss the upcoming season.

Most exciting was that actor James Marsden made a surprise appearance. During it, Marsden announced that he will return for the fourth season, which returns later this month to HBO on June 26, 2022. Marsden appeared as the sentient android Teddy Flood in 17 episodes during the first two seasons. The android is currently decommissioned (although its conscious mind is in the Sublime), so it’s unknown how he’ll return.

Check out the Westworld Season 4 poster below:

Westworld is a dystopian sci-fi drama, based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 film of the same name. It is a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the birth of a new form of life on Earth. It centers around a technologically-advanced amusement park, where human-like android hosts are programmed to fulfill each high-paying guests’ wants and desires.

Season four stars Evan Rachel Wood, Emmy winner Thandiwe Newton, Ed Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Tessa Thompson, Luke Hemsworth, Aaron Paul, Angela Sarafyan, and James Marsden. Additional cast includes Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, Aurora Perrineau, and Daniel Wu.

The Emmy-winning series is created for television by Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy, who are also serving as executive producers with J.J. Abrams, Richard J. Lewis, Roberto Patino, Athena Wickham, and Ben Stephenson.

Westworld comes from production companies Kilter Films and Bad Robot Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.

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HBO released the poster for Westworld Season 4 during

Awards

2022 Emmys Predictions: TV Movie

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official awards predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis; Awards Circuit Column, a weekly analysis dissecting the trends and contenders by television editor Michael Schneider (for Emmys) and Davis (for Oscars); Awards Circuit Podcast, a weekly interview series with talent and an expert roundtable discussion; and Awards Circuit Video analyzes various categories and contenders by Variety's leading awards pundits. Variety's unmatched coverage gives its readership unbeatable exposure in print and online, as well as provide inside reports on all the contenders in this year's awards season races.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit THE EMMYS COLLECTIVE
Visit each category, per the individual awards show from THE EMMYS HUB
To see old predictions and commentary, click the EMMY PREDICTIONS ARCHIVESFor film awards predictions go toTHE OSCARS HUB

UPDATED: June 2, 2022

2022 EMMYS PREDICTIONS:
OUTSTANDING TELEVISION MOVIE

AWARDS PREDICTION COMMENTARY: What looks to be a landmark year for the animation medium, while Netflix is looking solid for recognition for their film “The House,” Disney+ enters the pack with their mix of live-action and animation with the refreshing reboot flick, “Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers.” Putting 90s nostalgia into overdrive for those of us who were fans of the Disney Afternoon cartoon, the movie also has hilarious voicework from Andy Samberg and John Mulaney. Directed by the multi-talented Akiva Schaffer, it would be an elevated choice for TV Academy members to select, despite its light subject matter.

Written by Lauryn Kahn, “Fresh” was acquired by Searchlight Pictures ahead of its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. In March, the film was released on Hulu and received positive marks from critics and audiences. Adam McKay and Kevin J. Messick produced the thriller. McKay is a two-time Emmy-winner for outstanding variety special live (2019 for “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s ‘All in the Family’ and ‘The Jeffersons’”) and outstanding drama series (HBO’s “Succession” in 2020). Off his recent Oscar nomination for Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up,” this marks one of four possible noms McKay can receive this year — HBO’s “Succession” (drama series), “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” (drama series and directing the episode “The Swan”) and “The Invisible Pilot” (documentary series).

A24 and Apple TV+ have partnered once again on “The Sky Is Everywhere” from director Josephine Decker, who also co-produces. Those who give the movie its time could be a no-brainer for mature cinephiles to digest. The same goes for Oscar-winner Barry Levinson’s acclaimed feature “The Survivor” with Ben Foster in a transformational performance.

There are a few films on the bubble but lack the buzz at the moment to rise on the charts (despite impeccable quality)—the magnificent Jenna Ortega vehicle, “The Fallout” from Megan Park. With the recent tragedies in Texas, it may hit too close to home, but I challenge voters to watch its honest portrayal of the aftermath of a school shooting.

The nomination round of voting runs from June 16 to June 27. The official nominations for the 74th Emmy Awards will be announced Tuesday, July 12.

The programs and potential nominees listed below are incomplete and subject to change. The complete television awards season calendar is linked here.

2021 category winner: “The Queen’s Gambit” (Netflix)

ALL AWARDS CONTENDERS AND RANKINGS:

AND THE PREDICTED NOMINEES ARE:
RANK	FILM	NETWORK	PRODUCERS
1	“The House”	Netflix	Charlotte Bavasso, Christopher O’Reilly
2	“The Survivor”	HBO/HBO Max	Aaron L. Gilbert, Matti Leshem, Barry Levinson, Scott Pardo, Jason Sosnoff
3	“The Sky is Everywhere”	A24/Apple TV+	Josephine Decker, Denise Di Novi, Margaret French Isaac, Allison Rose Carter
4	“I Want You Back”	Amazon Prime Video	Isaac Aptaker, Elizabeth Berger, Peter Safran, John Rickard
5	“Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers”	Disney+	David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman
NEXT IN LINE
6	“Fresh”	Hulu	Adam McKay, Kevin Messick
7	“Kimi”	HBO/HBO Max	David Koepp, Michael Polaire
8	“The Fallout”	HBO/HBO Max	Shaun Sanghani, David Brown, Giulia Prenna, Joannie Burstein, Rebecca Miller, Cara Shine, Todd Lundbohm
9	“Ray Donovan: The Movie”	Showtime	John H. Radulovic, David Hollander, Liev Schreiber, Mark Gordon, Bryan Zuriff, Lou Fusaro
10	“Moonshot”	HBO/HBO Max	Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Jill McElroy, Jenna Sarkin
UNRANKED CONTENDERS
—	“8-Bit Christmas”	HBO/HBO Max	To be added
—	“Better Nate Than Never”	Disney+	To be added
—	“Bingo Hell”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Birds of Paradise”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Black as Night”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Book of Love”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Cheaper by the Dozen”	Disney+	To be added
—	“Crush”	Hulu	To be added
—	“Help”	Channel 4	To be added
—	“Jolt”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Line Sisters”	Lifetime	To be added
—	“Madres”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon”	Paramount+	To be added
—	“Salt N’ Pepa”	Lifetime	To be added
—	“Sex Appeal”	Hulu	To be added
—	“The Bad Seed Returns”	Lifetime	To be added
—	“The Manor”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“The Valet”	Hulu	To be added
—	“The Voyeurs”	Amazon Prime Video	To be added
—	“The Waltons: Homecoming”	The CW	To be added
—	“Vanished: Searching for My Sister”	Lifetime	To be added
—	“Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas”	The Roku Channel	To be added

AWARDS CATEGORY HISTORY (Best Television Movie)

The Primetime Emmy Awards, better known simply as the Emmys, is television’s most prestigious artistic award. Many records are held for both wins and nominations in the near eight decades.

This category has continually undergone rule changes and inceptions over the years, making it misleading to account for significant historical wins and nominations. For example, “Black Mirror” is a series with the most wins at three, while “Sherlock” has the most nominations at four.

HBO has the most wins in this category on the network front with 22, while NBC is second with nine. Netflix is the first and only streamer to have won this category – for three consecutive years with “Black Mirror.”

2022 Primetime Emmy Awards Predictions

2022 Creative Arts Emmys Predictions

Outstanding Television Movie
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Outstanding Reality Host
Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series
Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special
Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special
Outstanding Animated Program
Outstanding Short Form Animated Program
Outstanding Voice-Over Performance
Outstanding Narrator
Outstanding Structured Program
Outstanding Unstructured Program
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Outstanding Documentary Special
Outstanding Documentary Filmmaking
Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special
Outstanding Main Title Design
Outstanding Main Title Theme Music
Outstanding Music for Series
Outstanding Music for Limited Series
Outstanding Music and Lyrics
Outstanding Music Supervision

About the Primetime Emmy Awards (Emmys)

The Primetime Emmy Awards, better known as the Emmys, are given out by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). Since 1949, the awards have recognized excellence in American primetime television programming. They are divided into three classes – Primetime Emmy Awards, the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards (honors artisan achievements), and the Primetime Engineering Emmy Awards (recognizes significant engineering and technological contributions). The typical eligibility period is between June 1 and May 31 of any given year. The Television Academy comprises over 25,000 members, representing 30 professional peer groups, including performers, directors, producers, art directors and various artisans and executives.

The 74th Emmy Awards will take place on Monday, Sept. 12, and air on NBC.

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June 5, 2022

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Variety Awards Circuit section is the home

Music

Calvin Harris / Dua Lipa / Young Thug: “Potion” Track Review

If you look up the word “vibes” in the dictionary, chances are you’d see the cover of Calvin Harris’ 2017 album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1. Sure, the project wasn’t exactly challenging or groundbreaking in any way, but the Scottish DJ and multi-instrumentalist’s sudden interest in colorful post-disco beach music was a well-executed pivot no one saw coming. Songs like “Slide” and “Rollin” were inescapable earworms in the best possible way, proving Harris’ mettle as an A&R by placing artists like Frank Ocean, Migos, Future, and Khalid over what’s essentially digitized yacht rock for the SoundCloud generation.

The legacy of Funk Wav Bounces has followed Harris for the last five years, to the point that he’s ready for another go-round with Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2. If lead single “Potion” is any indication, Harris isn’t looking to tweak the formula. A snaking bassline, flecks of guitar, and synths glide like waves cresting on sand, the clean funk shining bright. It’s all sturdy enough to house a steamy Dua Lipa hook and a nimble verse from Young Thug—his first feature since being arrested on RICO charges and his second collaboration with Harris after his scene-stealing contribution on Vol. 1’s “Heatstroke.” Functionally and musically, “Potion” is no different from any other Vol. 1 song, another sunny and well-engineered confection to crowd playlists and soundtrack trips to the mall food court. Formulaic or not, it’s hard to argue when the results feel this good.

Content

This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

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June 5, 2022

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If you look up the word “vibes”

Docs

Season 4 Episode 8 | Rupert Gregson-Williams loves being cheeky

Robert and Kenny begin the show discussing the nominees for the 2021 World Soundtrack Awards, including many former guests and friends of the show. Kenny also shares why Blake Neely had an exciting and unexpected surprise while watching the Tokyo Olympics over the weekend.

Subscribe to MORE SCORE on Patreon for year-round interviews, film music talk and even cool merch: http://Patreon.com/MoreScore

Later, Emmy-nominated composer Rupert Gregson-Williams (Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Hacksaw Ridge, Veep, Catch 22, The Crown, Behind Her Eyes and more) joins the show sharing his early stories of growing up with his brother and fellow A-list composer Harry and why they only recently collaborated on a project after many years of success as solo composers, detailing why a particular cue on The Crown was his most challenging job to date, and revealing why Adam Sandler prefers to skip spotting sessions on his films.

This episode is presented by Spitfire Audio Follow us on Twitter @ScoreThePodcast or send Kenny and Robert your questions for the mailbox at ScoreTheMailbox@epicleff.com

Hosts: Robert Kraft & Kenny Holmes

Executive Producer: Matt Schrader

Coordinator: Carol Kuswanto

Review on iPhone or iPad

1. Launch the Apple Podcasts app.

2. Tap the Search tab (on the bottom right) and enter “Score: The Podcast” in the search. Look for the SCORE logo to appear.

3. Select Score: The Podcast, and then tap the Reviews tab.

4. Tap Write a Review at the bottom.

5. Before pressing Send, take a screenshot of your review by pressing the Home and Power buttons on your iPhone at the same time. This is your proof of entry to win an autographed copy of SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY. (Be sure you remember to hit Send after!)

(Optional) 6. Tweet us your screenshot @ScorethePodcast. This way we’ll be able to contact you through Twitter, as the Podcasts app does not allow us to contact you. Pat yourself on the back for helping launch this podcast! Bravo, maestro!

Review on Android

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2. Tap on the stars to rate the show and leave a review! (You may need to create an account to leave a review, if you haven’t already.)

3. Before pressing Send, take a screenshot of your review by pressing the Volume Down and Power buttons on your Android device at the same time (hold for 1 second). This is your proof of entry to win an autographed copy of SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY. (Be sure you remember to hit Send after!)

(Optional) 4. Tweet us your screenshot @ScorethePodcast. This way we’ll be able to contact you through Twitter, as the Stitcher app does not allow us to contact you. Pat yourself on the back for helping launch this podcast! Bravo, maestro!

Review on iTunes (Windows or MacOS X)

1. Open iTunes or click on this link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/score-the-podcast/id1357882784.

2. Search for “Score: The Podcast” and look for the SCORE logo to appear.

3. Select Score: The Podcast, and then tap the Reviews tab. Tap Write a Review at the bottom.

4. Before pressing Send, take a screenshot of your review (on Windows, press Windows+PrtScrn or use the Snipping Tool; on Mac, Shift+⌘+4). This is your proof of entry to win an autographed copy of SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY. (Be sure you remember to hit Send after!)

(Optional) 5. Tweet us your screenshot @ScorethePodcast. This way we’ll be able to contact you through Twitter, as iTunes does not allow us to contact you. Pat yourself on the back for helping launch this podcast! Bravo, maestro!

Follow SCORE: THE PODCAST on Twitter @scorethepodcast

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June 5, 2022

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Robert and Kenny begin the show discussing

Global

I was cop who took down ‘Canadian Godfather’ who ran one of world’s biggest mafia clans that inspired film Donnie Darko

A HERO cop has told how he led the operation to bring down “The Canadian Godfather” who ran one of the world’s biggest mafia clans and viciously gunned down his rivals.

Nick Milano managed to snare feared mob boss Vito Rizzuto who ran a prolific drug trafficking network and whose criminal empire controlled an area one-quarter the size of the US.

Vito was under 24-hour surveillance in the weeks leading up to his arrestCredit: AFP

Nick Milano was key in bringing down the notorious mob baron

Mr Milano’s mission was a turning point for the mob in Montreal, which saw Rizzuto extradited to the US and convicted for the notorious “Three Capos” murder.

The killing saw three mobsters die in a hail of bullets at a nightclub in Brooklyn before being buried in a mob mass grave – with Rizzuto being one the killers.

And it was a horrific gangland murder which was immortalised in the movie Donnie Brasco, starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.

The Rizzutos rose to notoriety in the 1980s following a bloody civil war that left Montreal streets laden in blood and the family on top.

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The gang – once dubbed the Sixth Family of New York due to its Sicilian roots and sheer power over Canadian industry and politics – siphoned billions in heroin and cocaine through Montreal and New York.

And the clan ran one of the largest extortion rings in the country at their height.

That all changed one cold January morning in 2001 when anti-gang officers arrived at the steps of Vito’s home with an arrest warrant and cuffs.

Mr Milano – a Montreal cop who cut his teeth patrolling the city’s red light district before infiltrating the Rizzuto family’s loan-sharking business – still remembers the moment he was called to lead the perilous mission launched by the FBI.

He told The Sun Online: “I was called in by my commander at the time.

“He calls me up my partner with Pietro and there are all the bosses. All four of us were in a little office.

“It was very secretive. He explained to us that we are going to embark on the extradition process of Vito Rizzuto.

“We were not to discuss this with any members of our team. Not because we couldn’t trust anyone but because it was very much on need-to-know basis.

“And to be honest, as the days went by, that became incredibly difficult to do. Impossible to do. But we respected it to the end.”

What ensued was a six-week surveillance operation that followed Vito’s every movement, 24 hours, seven days a week.

Dress up nicely Vito because you’ll be going to court

Nick’s partner to Rizzuto

The team were given special eavesdropping kit and vehicles and had Vito’s phone tapped.

“We would leave from our house, conduct surveillance with the team and pretty much operate for 16 hours. When Vito would go home to sleep, we would go home to sleep,” Mr Milano told us.

“We knew that at 12, he’d be back so at 10.30 we’d be back on the road and we joined the surveillance team.”

The retired cop said Vito’s habits were very predictable, which made it surprisingly easy to stake him out.

“Monday to Friday, he would exit his home around lunchtime and he would conduct a series of meetings in different restaurants, bars, public gatherings.

Al Indelicato was one of the men gunned down in Three Capos murder - played in Donnie Brasco by Robert Miano — Al Indelicato was one of the men gunned down in Three Capos murder – played in Donnie Brasco by Robert Miano

Philip Giaccone was also killed as the trio were buried in a mob mass grave

Dominick 'Big Trin' Trinchera was the third man killed in the massacre — Dominick ‘Big Trin’ Trinchera was the third man killed in the massacreCredit: Getty

“He would always go to the same cafe – Cafe Cosenza, in a historically Italian area of town. We would see him make contact with different people at all times of the day.

“He would meet different men and occasionally women and he would retire at his home around 11.30am to 12am, at the latest.

“Weekends were there for the family, the happenings, and his passion: golf.”

Mr Milano and his team slowly pieced together Vito’s routine and were ready to strike once Montreal’s police force said so.

And what that time came on January 20, 2004, it was done “like a very well-performed ballet”.

SURGICAL STRIKE

“It was surgical. Precise actions between the investigators, myself, and Pietro and the cast of support police officers that were part of the surveillance team till the moment we put the cuffs on him.

“We had a team that surrounded the property. We basically knocked on the door – we didn’t want to have tactical officers accompany us. It’s a family environment, his house was located in a very well-to-do area in Montreal and we did not have information regarding that he might be carrying a gun.

“We decided, Pietro and I, to confront Mr Rizzuto like normal citizens.

“Like two detectives to a bad guy. We knocked at the door. His wife answered. It was quite early in the morning and so she was in a nightgown. It was cold.

“Mrs Rizzuto opens the door and he’s at the top of the stairs. It’s not a small property.

“My partner and I asked him to come down, which he does and we go to the parlour just off the door.

“I ask him to sit down and I take the document out and I read it to him.

“He understood clearly why we were there and he understood the charge.

“He asked us at that point if he could change because he was in a nightgown and that’s when my partner told him: ‘Dress up nicely Vito because you’ll be going to court’.”

Vito's son Nick Rizzuto was buried in a golden casket after he was gunned down — Vito’s son Nick Rizzuto was buried in a golden casket after he was gunned downCredit: Alamy

Vito was handcuffed and eventually taken to a maximum security jail 30 minutes outside the city.

Mr Milano remembers Vito was “confused, bewildered” and constantly asking if they had the right person.

When the FBI’s extradition warrant finally came through two years later, Mr Milano and his partner swooped Vito out and onto a plane set for New York.

He said: “We allowed him to have his weekly visit with the family and waited for them to leave to sweep in the visitor sector.

“Me and another officer in plain clothes picked him up. The surprise was so well planned, he had to give away his belongings in the cell to a fellow inmate and the guards were all bewildered.

“The trip back to Montreal allowed him to get to know me and me him.

“He was forthcoming and spoke openly about his family, his prediction about how things would go down in his absence.

“It was prophetic; everything except the murders of his crew and family happened.”

Vito was later found guilty for the murders of three rival Bonano crime family capos, Philip Giaccone, Dominick Trinchera and Alphonse Indelicato.

On May 4, 2007, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 10 years behind bars and fined $250,000.

He was incarcerated into a federal supermax prison for the most dangerous male inmates in the US.

His disappearance from the mob scene created a power vaccum – with Vito’s son Nick being gunned down in 2009, and his father Nicolo being shot by a sniper in 2010.

When Vito was given early release in October 2012, he flew back to Montreal and met his captor months before the mob boss’ death from lung cancer.

The mobster provided Mr Milano with vital information about corruption among Quebec’s construction industry, which his family once benefitted from.

“I repeat to everyone who asks me what Vito was like,” Mr Milano said.

“He was a gentleman, in every sense of the word. Very composed and very articulate. He had leadership qualities.

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“He was able to influence people and had that charisma that made him a little bit special.

“I’ve met some big players in organised crime and some big time bikers and there was a distinction with Vito in regards to that.”

The crime family was established by Vito's father, Nick Rizzuto (pictured), who later killed from a sniper bullet while eating dinner with his family — The crime family was established by Vito’s father, Nick Rizzuto (pictured), who later killed from a sniper bullet while eating dinner with his familyCredit: PA

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June 5, 2022

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A HERO cop has told how he

Trending

‘Severance’ Finale Details Revealed by Ben Stiller, Stars and Creator

The first season of Apple’s “Severance” concludes with a jam-packed finale that sees the Innie ver- sions of MDR employees Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower) and Irving (John Turturro) awaken in the real world for the first time during an escape attempt, which leads Helly to find out she’s actually the Lumon CEO’s daugh- ter, Mark to realize his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), is alive and Irving to discover Burt’s (Christopher Walken) Outtie has a part- ner, all in just a few scenes. Constructing the episode in which Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Cobel (Patricia Arquette) realize what’s going on and then try to stop it, all while Dylan (Zach Cherry) is desperately trying to simultaneously hold the control room switches that will keep his friends awake, required more effort than the eight episodes that came before it.

Ben Stiller
DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
“The idea was to try to immerse the viewer in the point of view of the Innies. We wanted the last episode to be totally representative of their experience being in a different world than their own, so it was all shot by Steadicam, which we had only previously used in the MDR scene with Milchick’s dance. The hope was that it would feel as different for the audience as it did for the characters…. We didn’t shoot it as a stand-alone. We had shot parts of it over a nine-month period, so we would only have parts of a day to film it. I think Helly’s first shot, where we meet her at the party, was done at 1 o’clock in the morning, with only an hour left to shoot. … It involved lots of choreography, and the glass elevator. … Luckily, we had an amazing crew who were total pros and were able to design it and shoot within in that time.”

Dan Erickson
CREATOR, WRITER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
“We tried to think of it from both the Innie and Outies perspectives and end the story on a point that would change the game for the characters on both sides and create a cool new playing field for Season 2. So, for Mark, his Innie has just found the wedding photo and is scrambling to get the message to Devon that his wife is alive at Lumon, which he, sort of, half-completes. His Innie, in theory, is going to return to the Severed floor with this world-shaking knowledge. Meanwhile, his Outie’s going to wake up having just yelled this cryptic thing in the middle of a crowded party. He’s holding the photo, but is it going to be clear to Devon what he meant? It leaves both versions of him with new knowledge but also new things to figure out.”

Adam Scott
ACTOR, PRODUCER
“Innie Mark’s disillusionment with Lumon steadily grew over the course of the season, and he assumed it had probably hit its ceiling. But when he sees the wedding photo of Outie Mark and Gemma, everything he thought he knew is redefined — the depravity and cruelty of Lumon comes into focus for him, and it’s just immediate raw terror and fury. … Playing it was interesting, challenging, and like everything with this show, a bit of a puzzle. He’s also reacting to the tragedy of it: Having heard about Gemma from Ricken and Devon, he has an idea of what she meant to his Outie and how bereft he’s been — so, physiologically, he understands in a way, because they do share feelings, even though he can’t name or pin down the sad- ness Outie Mark passes along to him, he does feel it, even if it’s abstract. It’s also very sad and he feels the betrayal for the both of them. It was several things happening at once in that moment and I hope I was able to squeeze a few of them in there.”

Patricia Arquette
ACTOR, PRODUCER
“Cobel has a long history with Lumon. Lumon represents her family, her religion, her political view of the world. And she’s very committed to the corporation and the corporation doing important work in the world, even if that means she needs to step outside of normal procedures to show them. She knows what’s best and has the company’s interest at heart — even upper management. Cobel is fully aware that the rules are constantly changing. Even for her. She knows there’s no guarantee of anything. She has multiple agendas happen- ing at the same time in this scene.”

John Turturro
ACTOR
“Obviously, Irving is discovering his Outie’s world. The essence is about discovering your surround- ing circumstances, the place where you live in, the objects around you and who you are, obviously that would be quite disorienting. But, you are discovering it detail by detail. Then when he finds Burt’s place on the map, it all clicks in for him. Once he finds his address his feelings take over and he’s off. … Driving a car, it’s in you, but obviously you don’t know exactly what it is. I guess it’s not as easy as riding a bike, but it is how much of your Outie bleeds into your Innie. That’s the whole trick of it.”

Zach Cherry
ACTOR
“One thing that made the process of shooting that scene easier was the amazing set and production design. All the sets and locations we shot on were so fleshed out and detailed, it really felt like I was locked into this weird little claustrophobic control room. Also add- ing to the genuine tension of every take was that my glasses would slowly slide further and further down my nose to the point where I was essentially wearing them on my upper lip. That’s stressful! I had to hold the position for quite a while! I was definitely shaking my arms out in between takes and at the end of the day. [But if anyone asks, I could’ve held it for much longer with no issues. I’m very strong.]”

Britt Lower
ACTOR
“Filming this scene with Michael Siberry was a real tightrope walk; trying to balance how well Helly R is covering her rage in front of him, careful not to misstep, while also doing reconnaissance and plotting her next move. For me, reciting the compunction statement became a prayerful reckoning with herself. It’s Helly R being laid bare, holding her Outie self [Helena] account- able for her and their family’s actions. ‘Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world’ took on a really different meaning in this context. And at the same time, she’s reclaiming it as her own rally cry before she steps out to take down the company. Helly R is all instinct. So Cobel challenging her backstage becomes the gasoline on her fire. There’s no backing down after that.”

Tramell Tillman
ACTOR
“One of the joys of crafting Milchick was embodying a controlled, meticulous character to slowly unravel throughout the season. I jokingly said on set, ‘Everything was fine until Helly came along!’ One of my many responsibilities is to maintain order and productivity on the Severed floor at Lumon. As the season expands, we watch Milchick lose what he believes to be an effective grip. By the season’s conclusion, the stakes are incredibly high. The game has completely changed and everything is on the line. Milchick is a man who is wicked smart, agile, an observer. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of those he surveys. His superpower lies in knowing how to utilize his knowledge for gain. In playing this scene, it was important to remember who he is and what is at risk. I believe Milchick would stop at nothing to do what’s best for the company. Not only was it a pure delight in making the scene, but what we witness occur within Milchick is quite extraordinary.”

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June 5, 2022

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The first season of Apple’s “Severance” concludes

Tech

Amanda de Cadenet Inks 3-Year Podcast Deal With iHeartMedia – The Hollywood Reporter

Amanda de Cadenet, the podcast host of The Conversation and Victoria’s Secret’s VS Voices, has struck an exclusive, three-year deal with iHeartMedia.

As part of the deal, de Cadenet will release a new show, About the Men wWith Amanda de Cadenet, and new seasons of The Conversation and VS Voices. The podcasts will continue to be available on all major platforms, and iHeart will handle all ad sales opportunities for the three shows.

The second season of VS Voices will release June 2, with iHeart slated to co-produce and distribute an additional four seasons. The first season of the show, which featured interviews with Stella McCartney, Naomi Osaka, Megan Rapinoe, Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber and Priyanka Chopra Jonas, among others, will also join the iHeart network.

In About the Men, which is expected to launch in the late summer or early fall with an interview with Matthew McConaughey, de Cadenet will be in conversation with high-profile men about contemporary masculinity.

And later this year, The Conversation — which previously brought on guests like Hillary Clinton, Lady Gaga and Gwyneth Paltrow for the first season — will return with a second season, now under iHeart.

“Storytelling with a purpose is what I have focused on for most of my career,” de Cadenet said. “I am looking forward to continuing that mission in partnership with iHeart, and to amplify the powerful life experiences that my guests share with me.”

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June 5, 2022

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Amanda de Cadenet, the podcast host of

Video

Mariah Carey Hit With $20 Million Lawsuit for All I Want for Christmas Is You

Mariah Carey is being sued for $20 million over claims that she ripped the name of her holiday smash hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” from another song written five years prior.

In a complaint filed Friday in New Orleans, Andy Stone, who performs under the name Vince Vance as part of the country-pop group Vince Vance & The Valiants, filed allegations of copyright infringement and misappropriation. He named Carey, her co-writer Walter Afanasieff and Sony Music Entertainment in the suit.

The complaint alleges that the single exploited the “style” and “popularity” of Stone’s song, which he claims received “extensive airplay” during the 1993 holiday season and charted on Billboard.

Stone’s 1989 song (which is also the name of the band’s 1992 album) shares neither lyrics nor melody with Carey’s 1994 anthem. However, the lawsuit claims that the identical titles caused confusion and that Carey did not ask for permission.

The suit also states that Stone first notified the defendants in April 2021, but that the two parties were “unable to come to any agreement.” It did not mention when Stone first became aware of the Carey song.

“All I Want for Christmas,” the first single from Carey’s album “Merry Christmas,” became the first and only holiday single to hit 10 million sales and streaming units in the U.S. last December, 27 years after its initial release. In 2019, it topped the Billboard 100, making Carey the first solo recording artist to claim the No. 1 spot 19 times. The following year, its return to the top of the chart earned Carey the title of first artist to have a hit song in four different decades.

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By 2017, the shopping mall mainstay earned Carey more than $60 million in royalties, the BBC reported.

“The continued love for my song never ceases to amaze me and fill my heart with a multitude of emotions,” Carey said upon receiving the RIAA’s Diamond Award in late 2021. “It blows my mind that ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ has endured different eras of the music industry. The RIAA DIAMOND award?! Wowww! I’m so fortunate to have the greatest fans on Earth, my Lambily, who continue to support my legacy. I love you.”

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June 5, 2022

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Mariah Carey is being sued for $20

Entertaintment

Emmys to End Hanging Episode Rule for 2023 Awards – The Hollywood Reporter

The Emmys are doing away with the hanging episode rule, starting with the 2023 Awards.

The Television Academy announced that its Board of Governors had approved the change, which was recommended by its Awards Committee.

The policy currently allows a series that premieres current-season episodes after the May 31 eligibility deadline, but before the start of voting for nominations, to post those episodes on a platform for Academy members by May 31 for eligibility in the current Emmy competition.

However, next year, only episodes that premiere on a platform available to a national audience by May 31, 2023 will be Emmy-eligible.

The change was made, the TV Academy said, to standardize submissions within the eligibility year.

The Academy also released the following rules for series and limited/anthology series eligibility starting with the 2023 Emmys competition.

Series

• The required number of episodes from a series must premiere nationally by May 31 to be eligible in the current Emmy competition. (Six episodes are required for series in animation, comedy, drama, variety, short form and reality categories. Three episodes are required for documentary series and hosted nonfiction series).
• If a series premieres within the current Emmy eligibility year but doesn’t have the required number of nationally premiered episodes to qualify for its category, the series, along with the individual achievements, would gain eligibility in the subsequent Emmy competition.
• If a series qualifies in the current eligibility year, but has additional episodes from its current season premiering after May 31, those episodes will gain Emmy eligibility with the series’ subsequent season.
• If the series doesn’t return in the subsequent Emmy competition, those episodes would be eligible as single “orphaned” episodes in certain individual achievement categories. Submission for a body of work (including series and acting categories) would not be eligible under the “orphaned” episodes rule.

Limited/Anthology Series

• All episodes/parts of a limited/anthology series must premiere nationally by May 31 to be eligible in the current Emmy competition.
• If all episodes/parts do not premiere within the current eligibility year, the complete limited series, along with the individual achievements, would gain eligibility in the subsequent Emmy competition.

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June 5, 2022

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The Emmys are doing away with the

Movies

Jane Campion is Out with a Covertly Brutal Cowboy Drama

The Power of the Dog
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee

New Zealand director Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog comes more than a decade after she made Bright Star on the last three years of poet John Keats’ life and his romance with Fanny Brawne. It had a great cast of Ben Wishaw and Abbie Cornish. The director’s latest, The Power of the Dog, which has just opened on Netflix, is a diversion from most of her works in which the protagonist is invariably a woman. I remember her 1993 Cannes Competition title, The Piano, a period piece with Holly Hunter (essaying a “mute” woman), Harvey Keitel and Anna Paquin. It won the top Palme d’Or at Cannes, and went on to garner the Best Actress Oscar for Paquin (who was only 11 then) and a Best Supporting trophy for Hunter.

It is possible that The Power of the Dog would clinch a few Oscars early next year, though it is certainly not in the same league as The Piano, which was emotionally and passionately far more gripping. Campion’s current creation, which she adapted from Thomas Savage’s novel with the same title, is a disturbing mix of jealousy, rivalry and hatred as it is about love and affection. Phil and George are brothers, who despite their chalk-and-cheese differences in character, are inseparable like Siamese twins. They even share a bed, making us wonder whether they have homosexual tendencies. Having inherited a large ranch in Montana where they raise livestock and train horses, they have devised a neat pattern to co-exist in their mahogany panelled palatial house in the middle of nowhere.

It is 1925, and Campion presents an exciting cowboy story, though without guns, bullets and fights. The confrontations are internalised with Phil — played superbly by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is the protagonist here in a deviation from Campion’s women heroes – resentful of a third and fourth person intruding in the brothers’ domestic arrangement. George brings home his wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee).

Rugged and raunchy, Phil believes that the world is meant for the fittest – not for Rose, who lets a mood of melancholy and alcohol addiction engulf her. Peter is a sissy, a mother’s pet, training to be a surgeon, who in his free time makes exquisite paper flowers. When he puts them on the dining table, he is immediately branded Miss Nancy. Phil never loses an opportunity to taunt Rose or her son. When she is practising on her piano for a reception that her husband wants to hold for the Governor, Phil plays the same tune on his banjo, outsmarting and humiliating her.

Interestingly, while outwardly both Phil and Peter are poles apart, there is a strong, almost vile, streak running in them. We see this early on when Phil castrates a bull with his bare hands, and much later we would see Peter cutting his pet rabbit – which he explains away saying that he is experimenting for his course in surgical medicine.

George is the weakest link here; always nattily dressed, he is a perfect gentleman, but is absent from the screen for long periods, and there is little that strikes us about him. Portrayed by Jesse Plemons, he keeps to himself and strangely does not intervene when Phil keeps taunting Rose, who is even called a schemer latching to George so that her son’s college fee could be paid.

Shot in some of the wild parts of New Zealand (which are passed off as Montana), Campion captures the beauty of the rugged hills and the undulating valleys. Like the ups and downs of the landscape, we see a parallel in the relationships, between Phil and Peter. He takes the boy under him and trains him to be a cowboy, horse riding and the art of getting tough. Phil himself was trained by Bronco Henry, a cowboy from their youth.

The Power of the Dog, despite its dull brown look, has interesting moments. Look at the way Campion has framed a shot of a series of windows, and we see a horseman moving outside each – appearing and reappearing. Much like this fade-in and fade-out shot, the drama here is exposed or hidden in dark motives, suppressed anger and repressed sexuality. It is a devastatingly brutal look at lives lived in the gloomy recesses of turbulent emotions.

But I wish Dunst had got a better written part. If you remember, she was fantastic in Lars Von Trier’s Melancholy – a movie that got the helmer into trouble at Cannes, where he jocularly hinted that he was a fan of Hitler. I remember Dunst’s acute discomfort and embarrassment at that press conference where the Danish auteur angered half the world. Dunst walked away with the Best Actress Palm, although there are reports that the jury also wanted to give the work a Best Picture award.

(Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author, commentator and movie critic has been covering many film festivals, including Cannes, Venice and Tokyo, for three decades)

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June 5, 2022

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The Power of the DogDirector: Jane CampionCast:

Film

The 23 Best Summer Haircuts to Try in 2022 — Photos

The weather is finally getting hotter, so before you pack your beach bag and sip frozen margs, it’s time to check out the best new summer haircuts. Summer is always a great time for a hair switch-up, but especially after the past two years, we could all use a fresh start. What better way than shedding some dead weight?

Drew Schaefering, an expert stylist at Brooklyn’s Rob Peetoom, says that his clients have been feeling the same way. “One of the things that summer brings—aside from longer days, sunsets, and social gatherings—is a sense of change,” he explains. “Our hair behaves differently with heat and humidity changing, so many of us alter our approach and adapt. I have been cutting a lot of length with several clients opting for a more ‘lightweight’ and ‘free’ look.”

Lightweight and free is exactly how we want to be until Labor Day rolls around. We spoke to Schaefering and other top stylists for all the insight on the coolest summer haircuts to try this year. From minimalist hair to breezy bangs, read on for all the inspo you could hope for.

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June 5, 2022

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The weather is finally getting hotter, so

Alan Cumming’s Chimp From ‘Buddy’ Found After Faking Death

Cumming had previously offered a $10,000 reward for information about the chimp, which appeared in the 1997 film “Buddy” with him.

Alan Cumming’s search for information about Tonka, the baby chimp that starred in the 1997 film “Buddy” alongside him and Rene Russo, has finally borne fruit. The actor recently offered a $10,000 reward for information about the animal, which was thought to be dead in 2021.

“During the months we filmed together, baby Tonka and I became good friends, playing and grooming each other and just generally larking about,” Cumming said at the time. “It’s horrible to think he might in a cage in a dark basement somewhere or have met some other fate, so I’m appealing to whoever knows what has become of him to please come forward claim the reward.”

This week, Tonka was found alive in the home of longtime owner Tonia Haddix, where he had access to a 60-inch TV and a tablet device, and had recently participated in a St. Patrick’s Day party, according to Rolling Stone. Haddix admitted that she had faked the chimp’s death as a way to avoid turning him over to the Center for Great Apes sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida, which a judge had ordered her to do.

“Oh absolutely, 100 percent,” she said when asked if she had lied.

While the news that Tonka was alive should have made Cumming happy, the story was accompanied by a darker piece of information: PETA learned that the chimp’s owner had allegedly planned to have him euthanized on June 2. Haddix denies this, saying she had just scheduled a routine veterinary appointment for that day. She maintains that she was always acting in the chimp’s best interests, even subjecting herself to legal troubles for lying to the court.

“Honey, I’ve been held in contempt of court three times,” she says. “I have paid $50 a day [in fines]. I’ve been through the mill. I’m sure that there’ll be some jail time in this. Do I care? No, I don’t care. It’s because it’s about that kid. As long as that kid is safe, I don’t care about nothing out there.”

PETA disagrees with that characterization, and is actively working to move the chimpanzee to a wildlife sanctuary.

“After months of searching, Tonka has finally been found and help is on the way,” PETA’s attorney Jared Goodman said in a statement. “He has endured nearly a year of isolation and likely needs urgent care, but if all goes well, PETA will soon arrange for him to be moved to a lush sanctuary where he’ll have a chance for a real life at last.”

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June 5, 2022

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Cumming had previously offered a $10,000 reward

What to Watch

Wordle 351: June 5, 2022 Hints & Answer

June 5th provides another Wordle to solve and this answer could easily net some players a loss. Here are the hints, and answer, to today’s Wordle.

A brand new Wordle word is ready for players to solve and today’s answer could be a bit of trouble for some players. This once-a-day puzzle has grown quickly in popularity throughout 2022 due to its simple gameplay and social media sharing ability. Despite the social media posts declining in recent months Wordle still has a large player base with many making the game a part of their morning routine, like the newspaper crosswords of times past. The game was created by one person and gained popularity so fast that The New York Times quickly bought it and moved it over to their website. At the beginning of the transfer, there were fears of the game losing its free-to-play nature, but so far there have been no signs that that will ever happen.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

Wordle has also had its fair share of copycats that popped up quickly once it rose in popularity. One of the more popular ones is Heardle, which challenges players to guess a song with only one second of audio. If players guess incorrectly or skip, they will get a longer snippet of the song. Like the older game Name That Tune, Heardle has shown that simple word games are not the only thing that gains people’s attention, and keeping with the Wordle style Heardle only provides one puzzle a day.

Today’s Wordle Hints (June 5th #351)

Here are the daily hints for those players who just want a little help, followed by today’s fully spoiled Wordle answer.

Hint 1: Today’s answer does not contain any repeated letters.
Hint 2: This Wordle answer could describe the distance from the top to the bottom of something.
Hint 3: If Wordle was an 8 letter game this answer might be DEEPNESS.

Today’s Wordle Answer (June 5th #351)

The June 5th Wordle answer is DEPTH.

Often used to explain how deep something goes, depth can also define the quality of being intense, as in, a man of compassion and depth of feeling. For our starting Wordle word today we used IRATE. This gave us the correct placement for ‘T’ and an incorrectly placed ‘E’. Our second follow-up guess was MEETS which only provided a few more incorrect letters and the correct placement for ‘E’. Our third guess was HEFTY, this gave us another letter with ‘H’ in the wrong spot and two more incorrect letters. Without many other options, we ended up getting the correct answer in four guesses and continued our long-standing win streak in Wordle.

Next: Today’s Wordle Answer: All Words For 2022 (Updated Daily)

Ximena Morales smiling in 90 Day Fiancé.

90 Day Fiancé: Ximena Shocks Fans By Posting Very Revealing Photo

About The Author

William Cennamo
(179 Articles Published)

William Cennamo has been the Game Guides Editor for Screen Rant since 2019. A creative writer all his life, it was only in 2018 that he really started to pursue his passion for the written word. Specializing in script-writing, William has written multiple short comedy sketches and taught “Intro to Comedy Writing” at the Stomping Ground Theater in Dallas, Texas.

When not writing William spends his time with his wife and two lovely daughters, usually playing a board game.

His mother thinks he’s funny but doesn’t care much for his language.

‘Parenthood’ Reunion: 5 Highlights + 1 Revival Pitch from ATX TV Fest

Creator Jason Katims along with Dax Shepard, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen, and more gathered in Austin, TX to share stories about the NBC family drama.

When “This Is Us” premiered in September 2016, “Parenthood” had been off the air for a little more than a year. Many dubbed Dan Fogelman’s new NBC family drama the heir apparent to Jason Katims’ critical darling, which was itself a successor to his NBC family drama “Friday Night Lights.” Some even mistakenly complimented Katims for his work on “This Is Us,” assuming it was his next big-hearted tearjerker. Of course, “This Is Us” wasn’t Katims’ project, but that wasn’t the only key difference between the two shows: “This Is Us” quickly became a ratings juggernaut, whereas “Parenthood” was never NBC’s top draw, and the large ensemble cast eventually took pay cuts in order to ensure a sixth and final season could happen.

So, a little lingering irritation is understandable, even in jest — like the quippy remarks made at “Parenthood’s” reunion panel Friday night, as part of the 2022 ATX TV Festival. During the audience Q&A, Katims was asked how he knew it was time to end the show.

His simple answer: “That was NBC,” he said. “NBC came up with that.”

Then Dax Shepard jumped in, pretending to hear another audience query. “Oh, we just have another question here,” he joked. “She just asked, ‘Is anyone mad at ‘This Is Us’ for trying to do the exact same show?’”

As the audience laughed, Shepard said, “It’d be like if AMC canceled ‘Breaking Bad’ and then brought in ‘Meth Lab: Santa Fe.’ [Or] ‘Euphoria’ gets axed, and then it’s ‘Ecstasy’ on HBO!”

Jokes aside, “Parenthood” has endured in the years since leaving NBC, streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and now Peacock. Despite streaming’s murky viewership reports, it’s safe to say the audience has only grown of late, and fans turned out in droves for the hourlong reunion. The line to get in the door stretched around the block.

Taking part in the festivities were Katims, Shepard (who played Crosby Braverman), Monica Potter (Kristina Braverman), Joy Bryant (Jasmine Trussell), Erika Christensen (Julia Braverman-Graham), and Lawrence Trilling, who served as an executive producer and director on the series. Craig T. Nelson, Peter Krause, and Lauren Graham, among other cast members, were once scheduled to take part, but the reunion’s timing shifts — it was initially set for the 2020 festival before the pandemic forced a pivot to virtual festing — resulted in scheduling conflicts. Below are six highlights from the “Parenthood” reunion, including teary memories, dance secrets, and one brief but reasonable revival pitch.

Max Was the Key to Unlocking All of “Parenthood”

While “Parenthood” was based on Steve Martin’s 1989 film of the same name, each project was distinct from the other. For Katims, his initial inspiration for tackling the series didn’t come from the movie, but his own TV show, “Friday Night Lights.” A family drama built around a high school football team, the NBC project is widely considered one of the medium’s all-time great shows. It won three Emmys, including a writing win for Katims, and also built a strong following in the years after its initial broadcast run.

“I was very much honestly inspired by ‘Friday Night Lights’ in thinking what this show could be,” Katims said. “One thing I was really enjoying about ‘Friday Night Lights’ was the big ensemble — the big cast, the many, many points of view — and I thought, ‘What if you did a show like that, but was focused [solely] on family and extended family?’”

Still, the idea needed more. If a family drama was going to connect with an audience in the 2010s, then it needed unique, undeniable emotional ties. It needed to be personal.

“When I wrote the pilot story, a breakthrough moment for me, a moment of truth for me, was when I wrote the Max storyline,” Katims said, referencing Max Braverman, the youngest child in the central family who has an autism spectrum disorder. “I have a child who’s on the spectrum. […] There’s a storyline where [Max] gets asked to leave the school he’s in, and that really happened to me. I was on the verge of taking it out of the show because I was worried it was too personal for me [to divulge]. I took it out, then I put it back, and for me, that was what set the path for the entire show.”

“At the time, there were no characters with autism on broadcast TV,” Katims said. ” I wanted to do with every storyline what I did with that storyline — to dig deep.”

Tears, Tears, and No Tears

Such a personal investment led to many huge emotional moments throughout “Parenthood.” Soon, the drama had a reputation as a tearjerker — but the best kind. Few, if any, tears were shed via overt manipulation or stretching to create manufactured drama. Many were earned, including from the creator himself.

“I cried in every phase,” Katims said. “I cried when writing the scripts. All the writers cried in the writers’ room. I cried on set. But the most embarrassing thing was bring in the editing room in front of the editors. I would try to not cry in front of them, I don’t know why. But then this crazy sound came out of me [instead.]”

“I cried at every episode,” Christensen said. “Knowing what was coming didn’t help me at all.”

“I never cried,” Potter said, earning a big laugh from the crowd. Katims then praised the actor for her ability to “turn on the waterworks” in an instant.

Dax Shepard Was Reluctant to Join a Network Drama

Shepard said when the opportunity to join “Parenthood” came his way, he was focused on writing more than acting. But beyond that, the future “Bless This Mess” star wasn’t sure if a potentially long-running gig was a good fit for him at the time.

“I wasn’t sure if I had the right attention span to be on a network television show that might be on the air for six years,” Shepard said, before joking, “I like to shoot for three months, sleep with some of the people who live there, and get out of town — I wasn’t married [then], I was single.”

Shepard said he was in the middle of a notes session with David Nevins — who’s now the Chairman and CEO of the Paramount Premium Group and Chief Creative Officer, Paramount+ Scripted Series — when the then Imagine TV executive suddenly looked at him and said, “Oh my God, this is Crosby Braverman!”

After Nevins sent Shepard to audition, Katims soon had a similar reaction.

“I didn’t know about you not wanting to be on the show,” Katims said. “But when you walked in the room, I was like, ‘That’s Crosby.’ It was one of those rare kind of moments where I think it was meant to be.”

Thomas Schlamme Helped Create the Cast Chemistry That Carried the Show for Years

Even before “Parenthood” premiered, everyone was buzzing about its incredible cast. Craig T. Nelson was already a TV legend, after starring in “Coach” and “The District.” Peter Krause was hot off of “Sports Night” and “Six Feet Under.” Lauren Graham’s last series regular role was in a little show called “Gilmore Girls.” With Shepard, Potter, and Christensen, plus Mae Whitman and Joy Bryant, this was a starry ensemble that could go toe-to-toe with any other.

Still, they had to work together. They had to form a believable family unit. So Katims and his team turned to one of the best directors in the business — nine-time Emmy winner Thomas Schlamme — to helm the pilot.

“Under Tommy Schlamme’s tutelage,” Shepard said, “a good deal of our rehearsal was [when] we were seated around this big table, meeting each other for the first time, and we were encouraged to , ‘Who are you,’ ‘What role do you play in your family,’ ‘What are your parents like?’ — and it was incredible by the end of it how much we could relate to one another.”

“It was a real fast-track to understanding each other,” Shepard said. “It made us immediately intimate and vulnerable, and it put us perfectly into the tone of the show.”

The Bravermans Danced to Their Own Beat — Often, Quite Literally

Over the years, Braverman family dance parties became a fan-favorite staple of “Parenthood.” Once “the fever” struck any one of the core characters, it could spread quickly to the whole group. But what fans may not realize is that despite the show’s excellent soundtrack — aided by Emmy-nominated music supervisor Liza Richardson — most of those giant group shindigs were recorded in complete silence.

“There are a couple where we were listening to music, but the vast majority we were dancing to nothing,” Shepard said, before adding that they often worried about looking out of sync because cast members weren’t told the genre of music played in each scene. “I’m dancing to hip-hop. You’re dancing to rock and roll. Who knows what Monica is dancing to,” he said.

Early on, choices were made about the characters’ given dance skills — Krause, as seen in plenty of the compilation videos, embraced cheesy dad moves — but those talents weren’t always in line with the actors’ true abilities.

“I had decided Julia was not a good dancer and I really regretted it,” Christensen said.

“Because Erika is the dopest dancer,” Shepard said.

No Word on a Revival, Though There Was a Pitch

In the years since “Parenthood” ended, as the drama’s profile continues to rise and family dramas grow ever more desirable, Katims hasn’t been shy about floating potential continuations. As early as 2016, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’d be interested in doing that after a little time passes […] That would be a really interesting thing, to revisit ‘Parenthood’ when Drew [Miles Heizer] has now graduated from college and Haddie [Sarah Ramos] has graduated from college and somebody, who knows, may be nearing retirement age.”

Katims wasn’t asked for an update on any revival thoughts during the panel, but he did say he tends not to think about what happens to characters after he wraps a series.

“I don’t really give it a lot of thought,” he said. “We did over 100 episodes of the show, and I felt like what I wanted to do in the last season, the last episode, the last arc was really give it resolution. I wanted them to feel like they landed somewhere.”

The “Parenthood” finale was widely applauded by critics and fans alike, but that didn’t stop Shepard from making an unprompted pitch for how to pick up the story again.

“Simple pitch, Jason, off the dome, here we go,” he said. “After Zeke [Craig T. Nelson] died, the family splintered. Julia took a job in Oregon. Everyone moved all about. They have to come home to something special [because] they realize their lives are miserable this way: We gotta get the band back together.”

With a gap in family dramas left by a certain show’s recent ending, maybe this is… the time for more “Parenthood.”

All six seasons of “Parenthood” are available to stream on Hulu and Peacock.

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June 5, 2022

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Creator Jason Katims along with Dax Shepard,

Music

Big Thief Defend Upcoming Shows in Israel

We are excited to announce two shows in Max’s hometown, Tel Aviv, Israel @barby.tlv on July 6th and 7th.

Accompanying this announcement, we would again like to clarify our motivations and intentions for playing in Tel Aviv, Israel, with as much transparency as possible.

Over the last seven years we’ve traveled constantly around 3 of our members’ home country, the United States, meeting each other’s families and childhood friends and sharing in the joys and sorrows of a complicated, beautiful and tumultuous home. We have grown so close. It is important for us to share our homes, families and friends with each other in order to gain a deeper understanding of one another and the people and places that have made us who we are. It is important for us to go where we have family to share space and play for them. It is foundational. It is in that spirit that we made our decision to play in Israel.

We are well aware of the cultural aspect of the BDS movement and the desperate reality of the Palestinian people. In terms of where we fit into the boycott, we don’t claim to know where the moral high ground lies and we want to remain open to other people’s perspectives and to love beyond disagreement. We understand the inherently political nature of playing there as well as the implications. Our intention is not to diminish the values of those who support the boycott or to turn a blind eye to those suffering. We are striving to be in the spirit of learning.

With this in heart, the show’s profits will be donated to NGOs that provide medical and humanitarian aid to Palestinian children, including joint efforts between Palestinians and Israelis working together for a better future.

With love,
Big Thief.

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June 5, 2022

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We are excited to announce two shows

Docs

American Masters films that are streaming right now | Blog | American Masters

Here is a selection of films from our American Masters library for you to stream and enjoy right now:

Narrated by Jason Momoa, discover the inspiring story and considerable impact of five-time Olympic medalist Duke Kahanamoku. He shattered swimming records and globalized surfing while overcoming racism in a lifetime of personal challenges.

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Discover an international singer who captivated royalty in Europe and defied the conscience of 1939 America. Watch rare archival footage and hear audio recordings exploring her life and career from the Metropolitan Opera to the State Department.

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Revisit the complex life and legacy of the author, advocate and human rights pioneer. Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, used her celebrity and wit to champion rights for women, people with disabilities and people living in poverty.

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Dive into the career of the legendary blues guitarist, a pioneer of Chicago’s West Side sound and major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. Featuring new performances and interviews with John Mayer, Carlos Santana and more.

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Discover Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The Trocks), an all-male company that for 45 years has offered audiences their passion for ballet classics mixed with exuberant comedy. With every step they poke fun at their strictly gendered art form.

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At age eleven, he had just begun to play the saxophone. At age twenty he was leading a revolution in modern jazz music. At thirty-four, he was dead from years of drug and alcohol use. Today, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker is considered one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century. We’re bringing this film back to celebrate what would have been Charlie’s 100th birthday in August 2020.

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Until his death at the age of 106, Tyrus Wong was America’s oldest living Chinese American artist and one of the last remaining artists from the golden age of Disney animation. The quiet beauty of his Eastern-influenced paintings had a pioneering impact on American art and popular culture.

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June 5, 2022

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Here is a selection of films from

Global

Russians weary of Ukraine war want return to normal life

RIGA, Latvia — For Russia’s urban middle class, the war on Ukraine has messed up plans, ruined longed-for vacations and stripped away joys like shopping for a favorite foreign clothing brand, turning the key in a new Japanese car, even biting into a Big Mac.

As the war drags on, many yearn for life to go back to normal, before prices went crazy and foreign companies quit the country over Russia’s invasion. But these Russians are equally sure that President Vladimir Putin will keep on fighting until he wins, because that’s what he always does.

After convincing the majority of the population that the war was necessary to “liberate” Ukrainians from “Nazis,” state television propagandists are now doggedly preparing Russians for a long war, ominously warning that it might end in nuclear war.

In Ukraine, that means more civilian casualties, bombed houses and dozens of soldiers killed daily defending the country’s east.

Russian hardships may be trivial by contrast, but the deadening gloom of a long war worries the Kremlin, according to analysts, because of the challenge of dragging the population along as sanctions bite, businesses retrench, prices continue to surge, and it dawns on people that life may never go back to the way it was.

But the old Kremlin playbook, accusing the West of plans to gobble up Russia, is working so far. Denis Volkov of independent polling agency Levada-Center said the latest polling for April showed almost half of Russians unconditionally support the war and about 30 percent support it with reservations, with 19 percent opposed. Many in focus groups saw it as an existential confrontation with the West, not Ukraine.

“People explain that a significant part of the world is against us and it’s only Putin who hopes to hold onto Russia, otherwise we would be eaten up completely. To them it is Russia that is defending itself,” he said.

Ominous rhetoric gains ground in Russia as its forces founder in Ukraine

The conflict, however, is taking a toll on Russians like Marina, 57, a language teacher, whose friends are so weary of the war, they avoid the topic. She succeeded in changing the minds of a few friends and relatives who supported the war. “But in general, it seems everyone is sick and tired of the war or special operation. People have their own problems and the main problem is survival, especially with the rising prices.”

Marina acknowledged that few Russians are opposed to the war and most are finding a way to “get by somehow.” But she added: “This ‘somehow’ is becoming boring. Most people got tired of it. I want to travel. Others want to be able to plan. We want to get back to our ordinary lives.”

Marina can’t help dreaming wistfully of her old life — just a few months ago. “I want to be able to watch Western movies on Netflix and shop at Uniqlo. I want to travel to Europe on affordable and reliable airlines. I want to be part of the world and not an outcast,” she said.

Many people, still in denial, are struggling to adapt, said Grigory Yudin, professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. “The natural question for Russians is not whether I support it or not — nobody asks you, actually — but how do I adapt to this?”

Russians face prospect of Soviet-style shortages as sanctions bite

People want certainty about their incomes, travel plans and mortgages. Part of the Moscow elite, including middle-ranking bureaucrats who feel they are Europeans, are not happy about the war, he said, but tend to believe Putin will fight until he wins.

“I think the majority of Russians still honestly believe that this is going on with military success, or at least this is what people want to believe,” Yudin said. He added: “The more-educated people who are more informed and tend to consume information from different sources are not that certain about that. They have significant doubts.”

Volkov said the latest polling showed interest in watching news about the war is beginning to wane, with people in focus groups wishing their lives could go back to the way they were.

“The best scenario is for this to end as soon as possible and then we hope things will go back to normal,” said Ksenia, 50, a bookkeeper at a firm that sells foreign materials and has been hard hit by Western sanctions.

Most of her work colleagues began strongly supporting the war, but lately they avoid the subject, except to complain that ordinary people in Russia always pay the price of government decisions.

“My colleagues have finally started to realize that things are not great. In general, we try not to discuss it because we start to fight. They’re saying, ‘We didn’t start this war and now we have to pay.’”

Her plan to vacation in the United States or Italy this summer is ruined because she cannot get a visa.

“Now I feel as if there’s no future and it’s very depressing.” She ached when McDonalds’ golden arches were removed not for any love of the burgers or fries, but for the idea it represented.

“I’m really upset about McDonald’s, and I really mean it. McDonald’s has always been a symbol of freedom for me. I remember when the first McDonald’s opened in Moscow,” she said recalling the queues in 1990s months before the Soviet Union collapsed. “It felt like the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Putin’s purge of ‘traitors’ scoops up pensioners, foodies and peaceniks

For Ksenia and friends opposed to the war, the worst part is thinking of the Ukrainian civilians, including children, being killed and the women raped by Russian soldiers.

“I can survive without certain clothes. And I think I can survive without Western movies. But the main problem for me is that now Russians are outcasts, with whom nobody will want to shake hands. Psychologically, it’s really hard for me to feel that I’m unwanted everywhere.”

Viktor, a 35-year-old carpenter, says his small business has lost most of its clients, as they’ve been forced to economize. He cannot finish building his own house because he says prices for building materials doubled while his income halved.

Viktor thought war would rage about two months. “Now it will take years, and it’s a disaster. It’s not only losing lives. In the years to come we will be living in poverty and we will be hated again like the fascists in Germany in World War II — like we are the new fascists.”

But 43-year-old Andrei from Moscow sees the war as “God’s plan” and believes Russians are willing to make sacrifices to see it through. A yoga-loving, vegetarian computer programmer, he is not the typical elderly, conservative Putin supporter. He gets his news from one pro-Kremlin blogger and shares a common Russian conviction that Western news of Russian war crimes is “fake.” He declined to give his surname.

“The idea is to remove fascism from Ukraine and to return the civilians who want to live in the U.S.S.R., like before the ’90s,” he said echoing the propaganda.

“Right now we don’t feel any meaningful impact from sanctions,” he added, although many of his friends in IT have fled for Armenia and elsewhere, and he can no longer afford to buy a beloved MacBook computer. Nor can he purchase the new Mazda 6 he had his eyes on; he had been hoping pay about 2 million rubles — five months’ salary — but the price went up to 3 million.

Andrei is convinced that Russia will win the war in a year or so, prices will fall and Apple products will find their way to Russia via the black market. Until then, he says he’ll make sacrifices (but not volunteer to fight.)

“Western people like comfort, they need comfort,” he said. “Russian people may have comfort, or they may not. This is not a problem.”

Political analyst and journalist Fyodor Krasheninnikov said many Russians hope that Ukraine would soon capitulate to Russian military power. “The mood in Russia now is that ‘We want this to be over as soon as possible because we just can’t live like this any longer. We want to get back to normal life,’” he said.

“It’s not that people really like what Putin does,” he continued. “No, but they feel frustration and depression because they cannot change anything. It’s like bad weather. They realize that it’s going to rain every day. But what can they do about it?”

Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned

Russian students are turning in teachers who don’t back the war

Russia’s war dead belie its slogan that no one is left behind

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Evan Rachel Wood On Playing A New Character; James Marsden Returns – Deadline

It’s been two years since Season 3 of HBO‘s Westworld concluded and fans have been anxiously awaiting new stories. Co-creator Lisa Joy made a special appearance at the ATX Festival on Saturday night alongside writer Alison Schapker and stars Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Hemsworth, Angela Sarafyan, and Aurora Perrineau.

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Joy confirmed Wood’s character Dolores is dead as it was revealed in the Season 3 finale, and the actress will play someone new when the show premieres on June 26. Her name is Christina and she’s from a city that looks like New York. She lives there with her roommate played by Ariana DeBose who may or may not have a crush on Christina.

“Dolores is dead. But I really like Evan and she’s also kind of clinging so I had to bring her back. We write a whole new character for her,” Joy said.

Added Wood, “She’s a normal woman living in a big city just trying to make it as a writer. Nothing ever happens to her, really. I think that’s all I can say… I was told that Dolores was meeting her rather tragic end in Season 3, so I had some convos with [co-creator] Jonathan [Nolan] and Lisa at the time about what that meant. They said, ‘Yeah, you’ll be back this season and you’ll look a lot like Evan Rachel Wood but I’m not me.”

One thing that’s certain is that Christina will be dating and she will go on a date with a man who looks like James Marsden, who will return for Season 4. The Austin-based actor, who played Teddy in Seasons 1 and 2 of Westworld, surprised audiences mid-way through the panel.

“Sometimes you have to go away to come back,” Marsden said. “We learn to speak cryptically on this show. This has been 7 years of our show and yeah, it’s an amazing thing to be a part of and see where the story goes. From the beginning, I didn’t know where it was all gonna go but I’m glad to see it now.”

As far as where Wright’s Bernard will be when the series finally returns, the actor was equally mysterious with his response.

“It’s all a rabbit hole inside a rabbit hole and Bernard is going Alice again,” he shared. “At the end, I think for the audience and for me, as well as for him—which is like the meta side of our show— it’s a mystery of where he is and where he’s going. And if he did emerge, where would he be when he did that. Lots of unknowns and a lot of dust and mystery. That’s it. Pretty much my life.”

The audience at the historic Paramount Theater viewed an extended exclusive clip that showed power duo, Bernard and Stubbs at a diner where they have a run-in with Perrineau’s character, part of a mysterious group Bernard wants an introduction to.

“I got a scene to audition and I didn’t know what it was about. Every time I got a script, it was a surprise to see who I was. It’s definitely a surprise that’s very interesting,” Perrineau said.

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It’s been two years since Season 3

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Yes, The Boys season 3 and Doctor Strange 2 really do share a wild cameo

Spoilers follow for The Boys season 3 episode 1. You have been warned.

Eric Kripke has revealed how he reacted to The Boys season 3 and Doctor Strange 2 containing the same wild cameo appearance.

Speaking exclusively to TechRadar before the launch of the hit Prime Video show‘s latest season, The Boys showrunner explained how he “clasped his hands with glee” after realizing that the latest Marvel movie chose the same actor to play a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

We’re about to dive into full spoiler territory for The Boys season 3‘s premiere. If you haven’t watch episode 1 yet, don’t read past the image below.

Marvel Studios and Amazon Studios had the same actor in mind for a superhero role. (Image credit: Amazon Studios)

The Boys season 3’s first episode opens with the red carpet premiere for Dawn of the Seven, a Vought International-developed movie that parodies superhero team up films like Zack Snyder’s Justice League and The Avengers. The spoof superhero flick is based around the events of the season 2 finale, where various members of The Boys and The Seven teamed up to defeat the right-wing Supe known as Stormfront.

As this is a Vought-produced film, however, the narrative has been rewritten so audiences think that it was The Seven that saved the day. That means putting Homelander front and center as he tries to persuade Stormfront to stop waging her war on the world – in the movie, that is – before the rest of The Seven turn up to help him defeat her.

So, who is the actor hired to play Stormfront in Dawn of the Seven? None other than Charlize Theron, who also recently made a shock cameo appearance as Clea – another Master of the Mystic Arts in the MCU – in Doctor Strange 2. To find out more about how Theron’s Clea will impact the MCU moving forward, be sure to check out our ending explainer on the Marvel Phase 4 project.

Given the amount of information that leaks out about Marvel Studios productions these days, it’s surprising that Theron’s cameo in The Boys’ third outing didn’t suffer a similar fate. How did the show’s cast and crew, then, keep her appearance in The Boys under wraps? And why was Kripke pleased to see Theron in Doctor Strange 2, even if it meant that Marvel beat Amazon to the punch in casting her for a superhero project?

“It’s a very careful and elaborate process of maintaining embargoes and NDAs,” he explained. “We just work in partnership with everyone – the cast, crew, you guys [journalists] – to help maintain those secrets for our audience.

“Regarding Doctor Strange 2, I just saw it with my son last week [before May 20, when The Boys season 3 junket took place] and I clasped my hands in glee when I saw Charlize in the film. It made it an infinitely more perfect cameo because they’re Marvel, they had the same idea and used her in the exact same way. That’s delightful.”

Elaborating on how Charlize Theron became involved in The Boys, Kripke humorously added: “For every cameo we have in the show, it’s the rigorous process of whoever returned [executive producer] Seth Rogen’s phone calls.”

There are plenty of other surprises to come for fans of The Boys TV show in season 3, too. We won’t spoil any of those either, but what we can offer you is more behind-the-scenes access surrounding the Prime Video series.

Check out our in-depth chat with Kripke and the show’s cast about all things season 3, or find out how one of the series’ actors reacted when he first found out about The Boys’ Herogasm storyline. Alternatively, find out which iconic DC superhero Kripke wants to parody next in the show, or learn about which other season 3 scene he’s most excited for fans to see.

The Boys season 3’s first three episodes are available to stream now on Prime Video. Subsequent episodes will release weekly until July 8.

Want to read a spoiler-free review of The Boys season 3? We’ve got you covered

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June 5, 2022

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Spoilers follow for The Boys season 3

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‘Animal Kingdom’ Final Season Trailer Sees The Return Of Two Familiar Faces – Deadline

TNT has unveiled the trailer for the sixth and final season of Animal Kingdom, and it’s packed with action and a few key spoilers.

In the final season, the Cody boys discover that as hard as they may try, they can’t outrun their past. “May we all get what we want and never what we deserve,” is a line voiced by one of the brothers in the clip.

The trailer gives us a glimpse of things to come and a couple familiar faces who make a return. One is Deran’s father, Billy, played by Denis Leary, and, presumably in a flashback, Grey’s Anatomy‘s Scott Speedman as the late Baz. Speedman was last seen in Season 3’s season premiere. We also see Moran Atias’ Detective Thompson’s intense efforts to get Pope to confess to Catherine’s murder.

Per the official Season 6 logline: “With their empire expanding, a cold case investigation sets off a series of events that puts the entire family in jeopardy. Revenge, betrayal, and a reckoning with long forgotten violence leads to an explosive conclusion six seasons in the making.”

Original cast members Shawn Hatosy, Finn Cole, Ben Robson and Jake Weary are all back for the final season.

Animal Kingdom is produced by John Wells Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. John Wells, Daniele Nathanson, Erin Jontow, Nick Copus and Bradley Paul serve as executive producers. Animal Kingdom was developed for television by Jonathan Lisco and inspired by the Australian feature film written & directed by David Michôd and produced by Liz Watts, who also serve as executive producers on the series.

Season 6 premieres Sunday, June 19 with back-to-back episodes beginning at 9 pm ET/PT.

Watch the trailer above.

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