Film
Texas Chain Saw Massacre Narrator John Larroquette to Return in Netflix’s Sequel
48 years after Leatherface first slashed his way to the big screen, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is coming to Netflix in 2022. Better yet, the streaming giant announced today that they’re bringing back John Larroquette to narrate the opening of their forthcoming sequel to the horror classic. Larroquette’s first film role was in 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, in which he narrates a now-iconic foreboding message warning viewers about the “mad and macabre” events to come. The news brief was intended to heighten the audience’s fears by rooting the story in true crime (although Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper’s screenplay was actually loosely based on the violent crimes of Wisconsin murderer and bodysnatcher Ed Gein). Speaking to Variety, Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Dav...
Three Men Embezzled $190,000 to Buy Boat Named After Harry Potter’s Favorite Spell
Expecto jailtonus! Three men embezzled $190,000 to buy a boat named “Expelliarmus,” which Harry Potter fans will recognize as the boy wizard’s favorite disarming spell. According to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times, it’s part of the broader fallout of the 2017 Washington Federal Bank for Saving scandal in Bridgeport, Illinois. In addition to other shady practices, bank president John Gembara helped William A. Kowalski and his brother Robert Kowalski turn $0 into $190,000 through the dark magic of illegal accounting. Together, the trio purchased the “Expelliarmus” Sea Ray 420 Sundancer motor yacht with a down payment of $200,000, including a $190,000 Washington Federal check that William Kowalski endorsed over to the seller of the boat, plus $10,000 from one of the Kow...
John Leguizamo Says He “Stayed Out of the Sun” So He Could Book More Roles
John Leguizamo acknowledged he used to stay out of the sun as much as possible in a deliberate effort to make booking roles easier as a “light-skinned” Latino. In a recent interview with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Leguizamo, who born in Colombia, said, “I stayed out of the sun so I could work. I definitely would not go in the sun for years. It was a conscious thing because I could work. And all the Latinos that made it so far, a lot of them were all light-skinned.” “[Darker-skinned Latinos] don’t get a shot, you know,” the actor continued. “So, there’s a lot of things we got to deal with in Hollywood, and we got to fix, and we got to speak out and we got to speak up.” Advertisement Related Video According to a USC study, only 7 percent of the top-grossing films from 2...
Chinese Nationalists Call for Boycott of The Matrix Resurrections After Keanu Reeves Joins Tibet Benefit Concert
Keanu Reeves was recently announced for this year’s Tibet House US benefit concert, drawing backlash from Chinese nationalists — some of whom have called for a boycott of his latest film, The Matrix Resurrections. Reeves’ support for the cultural organization, which was founded in 1987 at the request of Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, has struck a nerve. The People’s Republic of China annexed Tibet in 1950, which ultimately led to the exile of the Dalai Lama, and the Communist Party has cracked down on the region’s people and their culture since then. First held in 1989, the Tibet House US benefit concert is a fundraiser to support the work of the cultural embassy. It’s timed in conjunction with the Tibetan New Year, which has traditionally been marked by the Monlam Prayer Festival. Ad...
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Peter Dinklage Calls Disney’s Snow White Remake “Fucking Backwards” [UPDATED]
Peter Dinklage isn’t happy about Disney’s forthcoming live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,. During a recent visit on Marc Maron’s WTF Podcast, the Game of Thrones star voiced his frustrations with the remake, calling Snow White a “fucking backwards story about dwarfs.” While Disney has yet to announce their plans for the dwarfs in the film, many fans were excited to find out that West Side Story breakout Rachel Zegler — who is part Colombian — had been cast as the lead princess. For some, casting a person of color in the role marked a major step for inclusivity. But to Dinklage, the story remains deeply flawed and marginalizing at its core. “There’s a lot of hypocrisy going on,” Dinklage said. “Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback ...
Steve Carell and John Krasinski Reuniting for New Movie IF
John Krasinski’s next film IF (not to be confused with Stephen King’s novel and subsequent movie adaptations) is shaping to be a mini reunion of The Office. As Deadline reports, Steve Carell has joined the cast of the movie, which will also star Ryan Reynolds. The plot is being kept under wraps, but it’s based on an original idea from Krasinski about a child’s journey to rediscover their imagination. Krasinski will direct, write, and produce the currently untitled film under his company Sunday Night with Reynolds co-producing. Rounding out the cast are Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), Alan Kim (Minari), Cailey Fleming (Loki), Louis Gossett Jr. (Watchmen), and Fiona Shaw. The movie is set for release via Paramount Pictures on November 17th, 2023. Advertisement Krasinski and Carrell haven’t w...
The Batman Director Elaborates on Kurt Cobain Inspiration: “His Drug Is… Revenge”
Matt Reeves, director of Warner Bros.’s The Batman, recently revealed that his version of Bruce Wayne draws inspiration from Kurt Cobain. In a new interview with Esquire, Reeves discussed the similarities between the Nirvana frontman and Gotham vigilante, explaining that they’re both addicts. “Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about [Nevermind song] ‘Something in the Way,’ which is in the first trailer, which is part of the voice of that character,” Reeves explained. “When I considered, ‘How do you do Bruce Wayne in a way that hasn’t been seen before?’ I started thinking, ‘What if some tragedy happened [ie: Wayne sees his parents murdered] and this guy becomes so reclusive, we don’t know what he’s doing? Is this guy some kind of wayward, ...
Chinese Release of Fight Club Includes Awkward Re-Cut Ending Where Police Save the Day
Fight Club ends with a battle of personalities and a series of fiery explosions, as an anarchist plot to upend consumerism brings buildings crashing to the ground. But as Vice notes, Chinese censors prefer the message that evil is always punished and the state will forever triumph over lawlessness, which is why the country’s new version of Fight Club has been burdened with an awkward re-cut where police save the day. David Fincher’s Fight Club became an instant cult classic when it dropped in 1999, following the characters Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and the Narrator (Edward Norton) as they tried to punch their way through the alienation of modern life. But the cut streaming on the Chinese site Tencent Video tries to make the case that, ...
Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Fires Harry Potter Actor
Today in the ever-troubled world of Harry Potter, the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has fired James Snyder, the actor who portrayed the titular wizard, citing unspecified concerns about his conduct. Producers of the play said they launched a third-party investigation into Snyder’s conduct after receiving a complaint from Diane Davis, the actress playing Ginny Potter, Harry Potter’s wife. Davis filed the complaint on November 19th, 2021, just a week after the show resumed performances after shutting down due to COVID-19. Snyder was originally suspended pending the results of the investigation, but his contract has now been terminated, and Davis is taking a leave of absence from the production. “We are committed to fostering a safe and inclusive workplace, whi...
Sundance Review: Meet Me in the Bathroom Is a Time Capsule of 2000s Indie Rock
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: Pitched between the doomsday-prepping of Y2K and the existential horror of 9/11, 2000s New York was also home to another seismic change in American culture: the burgeoning indie-rock scene, where dingy clubs on the Lower East Side played home to acts like Interpol, The Strokes, The Moldy Peaches, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That’s the hazy, deafening, beer-sticky stage on which Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (who previously directed the LCD Soundsystem doc Shut Up and Play the Hits) operate for Meet Me in the Bathroom, less an adaptation of Lizzy Goodman’s 2017 oral history of the same name than a living companion piece. Related Video Comprised almost entirely of archival footage stitched together b...
Daniel Craig Did Full Interview Without Noticing He Was Bleeding from Forehead
Daniel Craig has spent so much time as James Bond that he no longer notices when he’s bleeding. In a new conversation with Javier Bardem as part of Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series, Craig spoke for over 20 minutes without realizing he had an open gash above his right eye. “Let me ask you, my friend, as the last question: What happened to you here?” Bardem said, pointing to the spot. Craig had no idea what he was talking about, even wondering if he’d gotten a bit of his lunch on his forehead. But after looking in the mirror, he realized what had happened. As he explained, he’d recently acquired a new ring light for his iPad. Immediately before filming the interview, he said he leaned forward: “I went like that, and it just fell on my head right before this.” Advertisement Related Vi...
Sundance Review: jeen-yuhs Paints a Humanizing Portrait of Kanye West’s Beginnings
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: Before his marriage to (and subsequent divorce from) Kim Kardashian, before his abortive 2020 presidential campaign, before the wild tweets and outrageous behavior that would define his public persona in the 2020s, there was just Kanye West and the music. From the beginning, the Atlanta-born, Chicago-raised producer turned rapper knew he was going to be one of the greatest musicians of all time; his first album, 2004’s The College Dropout, is studded with lines to that effect (“I was born to be different”). But it took the world a while to catch up with his ambition, and the problems didn’t stop there even after he finally broke through. By his side for the last twenty years was Clarence “Coodie” S...
