Film
SNL’s Please Don’t Destroy Making Movie with Judd Apatow
After going viral during the pandemic and landing a writing gig on Saturday Night Live, comedy group Please Don’t Destroy are taking the next step by making a buddy comedy produced by Judd Apatow. Currently untitled, the movie centers around three childhood friends who live and work together. Looking to change their lives, they set out to find gold treasure rumored to be buried in a nearby mountain. Please Don’t Destroy is comprised of Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy, who met while attending New York University and started collaborating. After gaining a cult following with their self-produced online videos, they were hired for the recently concluded Season 47 of SNL. Advertisement Related Video Some of their notable sketches include “Three Sad Virgins” featuring Taylor ...
Jordan Peele’s Nope Is Dazzling, Self-Reflective Horror Blockbuster Spectacle: Review
The Pitch: In the rolling hilly countryside outside Los Angeles city limits, the Haywoods — descended from the first Black horserider/stuntman/movie star to ever be captured in motion — try to make ends meet as Hollywood horse wranglers. But when the family patriarch (Keith David, radiant as always) dies from a freak accident, the task is left to introverted Otis Jr., or OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) to keep the family ranch afloat, with the reluctant help of his fast-talking, hustle-happy sister Emerald (Keke Palmer). At first, they resort to selling off the family horses to nearby Jupiter’s Claim, a hokey Wild West-themed amusement park run by former child star Ricky (Steven Yeun). But fortunes start to change when they realize there’s something above them, in the clouds, scaring the horses and sh...
Miriam Margolyes: Arnold Schwarzenegger Deliberately “Farted in My Face”
Veteran character actress Miriam Margolyes got a small taste of superstardom on the set of 1999’s End of Days, saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger purposefully “farted in my face.” Margolyes, best known for Black Adder, the Harry Potter films, and Martin Scorsese’s Age of Innocence, is one of entertainment’s most reliably funny interviewees. During a conversation with news.com.au’s “I’ve Got News For You” podcast, she was asked if there were any A-listers she didn’t particularly like. Magrolyes quickly had someone in my mind, though she couldn’t recall all the details. “I didn’t like the wrestler, you know from Austria? What’s his name? Schwarzenegger! Didn’t care for him.” The 81-year-old recalled the future Governor of California as “quite rude. He farted in my fac...
Netflix Loses Nearly One Million Subscribers Worldwide
Netflix has followed a bleak first quarter marking its first loss of subscribers in 11 years with even worse news. During its latest quarterly report, the streaming giant revealed a loss of an additional 970,000 worldwide subscribers. Breaking down the subscriber change by region, Netflix lost 1.3 million in the US and Canada; dropped another 770,000 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; held steady in Latin America; and gained one million in Asia. The losses don’t come as a surprise, but actually beat the company’s previous estimate back in April that it would shed two million total customers during the second quarter. In a letter to shareholders, Netflix revealed it currently has 73.28 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada and 220.67 million worldwide. The company also pro...
Captain Ukraine? Russia Claims It’s Losing to Army of Lab-Created Super Soldiers
Russian officials may have been reading too many comic books, saying the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has failed to make progress because they are losing to an army of lab-created super soldiers. As reported in Kommersant (via The Daily Beast) an official “investigation” has unveiled “secret experiments” in certain Ukrainian “biolaboratories.” This conspiracy might sound familiar; it began on Twitter but quickly picked up momentum in the mainstream right wing mediasphere including Tucker Carlson. The theory goes that Russia invaded Ukraine to destroy “biolabs” (perhaps funded by Biden and run by Fauci) that would unleash something heinous upon the world (possibly a virus even worse than COVID-19). Russia itself eventually picked up the rumor, happy to spread misinformation that...
Rob Zombie’s The Munsters Movie Will Premiere Directly on Netflix
Rob Zombie’s movie adaptation of the 1960s sitcom The Munsters is set to premiere directly on Netflix, the rocker-director revealed in an Instagram post. Early reports had the movie premiering in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously, but it turns out the film is heading straight to Netflix. While an exact release date has yet to be announced, the first full trailer revealed that the movie will debut this September. Zombie posted the movie poster alongside one for Tim Burton’s upcoming Netflix series Wednesday, based on The Addams Family, which was a competitor of The Munsters on TV in the ’60s. He also included some images from an old TV Guide he dug up that featured both programs, writing the following: “This fall we are gonna spook-out like it’s 1964! Yep, THE MUNSTERS and THE ADDAMS F...
Adam Scott Signs On to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Movie Madame Web
Adam Scott has joined Sony’s upcoming Marvel movie Madame Web, according to reporting by Deadline. The upcoming superhero film is already set to star Dakota Johnson as the titular character who, according to Marvel lore, is a mutant possessing psychic powers such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and astral projection, all while being hooked up to a life support system resembling a spider’s web. (As the film is part of Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters and not directly tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s likely the mutant element of the character will be rewritten.) Other confirmed cast members include Sydney Sweeney, Emma Roberts, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, and Tahar Rahim, while S.J. Clarkson is set to direct. No stranger to Marvel properties, Clarkson previously he...
Tina Knowles Stopped Solange from Being Beyoncé’s Austin Powers Backup Singer
Oh, behave! Back in the early 2000s, Beyoncé memorably made her theatrical film debut in Austin Powers in Goldmember, and Solange almost played a part in the comedy before Tina Knowles shut it down. According to Vulture‘s oral history of Queen Bey’s time as Foxxy Cleopatra, a then-15-year-old Solange was all set to serve as her sister’s back-up singer in the 2002 three-quel. “I remember Beyoncé and I giggling because [Solange] was young and everything in Austin Powers is so suggestive,” recalled choreographer Marguerite Derricks. “‘He’s got the Midas touch, but he touched it too much’ — that was a lyric that we were freaking out about for her sister.” However, when it came time to shoot the scene, Tina Knowles put her foot down. Costume designer Deena Appel explained, “What happened, the w...
Resident Evil Adaptations Explained: A Licker’s Guide to 20 Years of Films and TV Shows
The history of video game adaptations is replete with failure, Hollywood attempting to glom the thin characters, ropey storylines, and innately gamified nature of popular game franchises to the big or small screens. Some work better than others (Mortal Kombat ’95 good; Mortal Kombat ’21 bad), but few franchises have tried as often as Resident Evil. Capcom’s flagship action-horror franchise has been a staple for decades, with dozens of games under its umbrella (eh?). It’s a series with deep, convoluted mythology, with the evil Umbrella Corporation and its attendant T-viruses and G-viruses. There’s also a host of grizzled protagonists, slimy beasties, and helpless young girls your characters are forced to rescue. But adapting the material to film or TV becomes tricky...
Robert Downey Jr. Paid for Armie Hammer’s Rehab: Report
Armie Hammer all-but-disappeared from Hollywood last year following disturbing allegations of sexual assault, but he apparently found a friend in one star, Robert Downey Jr. Vanity Fair reports that the Iron Man actor, who’s had his own share of controversies, paid for Hammer to spend six months in a rehab facility after news of his scandal broke. An unnamed source confirmed Downey financed Hammer’s stay at the Florida rehabilitation center the Guest House, a secluded 52-acre estate in Silver Springs that caters to high-profile clients like celebrities and politicians. He completed his stay in December and moved to the Cayman Islands — where his employment as a hotel resort timeshare salesman recently thrust him back into the spotlight. According to the report, Hammer was so houn...
Constance Wu Details Suicide Attempt in Return to Social Media
Constance Wu has returned to Twitter after a three-year mental health hiatus, revealing that the backlash to her series of “careless” tweets in 2019 led to a suicide attempt. She also announced a book called Making a Scene, which she wrote to “help people talk about the uncomfortable stuff in order to understand it, reckon with it, and open pathways to healing.” “I haven’t been on social media in almost 3 years,” Wu wrote in a note posted to Twitter. “Tbh, I’m a little scared, but I’m dipping my toe back in to say I’m here and while I was gone I wrote a book called Making a Scene. This next part is hard to talk about… but I was afraid of coming back on social media because I almost lost my life from it: 3 years ago when I made careless tweets about the renewal of my TV show, it ignited out...
Kevin Spacey Pleads Not Guilty to Five Sexual Assault Charges in UK Court
Kevin Spacey pled not guilty to five sexual assault charges at a court hearing in London today (July 14th), Deadline reports. A trial date has been set for June 6th, 2023. In May, Metropolitan Police charged the Oscar-winning actor with four counts of sexual assault and one of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” The alleged assaults occurred between 2005-2013 in London and nearby Gloucester county against three men who are now aged in their 30s and 40s, and Spacey has repeatedly denied the accusations. The judge in today’s hearing also continued Spacey’s unconditional bail, which was granted last month. Back in 2019 in Massachusetts, Spacey was charged with indecent assault and battery in connection to a July 2016 incident involving an 18-...
