Film
Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry Offers a Clear Portrait of Teenage Life: Review
The Pitch: When Billie Eilish was 13 years old, she posted a video of herself singing her song “Ocean Eyes”. Three years later, in 2018, she was already on a fast path to superstardom, and director R.J. Cutler somehow knew to pick up his camera. This is the starting point to his Apple TV+ documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. Cutler, whose resume includes documentaries such as The September Issue and Belushi, couldn’t have predicted the kind of year he was about to capture. By circling around Eilish’s 18th year, Cutler documented the writing, recording, release, and reaction of her first full-length album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. He then continued to capture Eilish’s subsequent sold-out shows and festival appearances, radio and magazine interviews, and ...
2021 Golden Globes Predictions: Who Will Win, Who Shouldn’t Be There, and Who’s Missing
Every year, we say we’re not going to watch the Golden Globes. “They’re pay-for-play opportunists who trade awards for access,” we plea in the mirror. “Remember Pia Zadora?” And yet, just like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, they pull us back in. Maybe it’s the pandemic insisting upon things to look forward to amidst the threat of impending doom. Or, more likely, we just love TV and the people who make it too much to not want to root for them to get recognition — no matter how dubious the award. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an enigmatic collective of 93 non-American journalists who nonetheless live in LA, give out their trophies every year, and the picks are virtually impossible to guess. Sometimes, it’s recognition of the best work in film and TV that year. Other t...
Adam Sandler Wants to Make a Happy Gilmore Sequel
Happy Gilmore celebrated its 25th anniversary a few weeks ago and it looks like Adam Sandler hasn’t stopped thinking about the 1996 comedy classic since then. In a new interview, the actor revealed that he wants to make a Happy Gilmore sequel that centers around a senior golf tournament. It sounds like a great idea; fingers crossed Sandler can tap, tap, tap it in. During Wednesday’s episode of The Dan Patrick Show on The Golf Channel, Sandler and Christopher McDonald — the two of whom played the titular hockey-turned-golf star and the perfect comedy villain, respectively, in the original movie — opened up about whether or not there have been any attempts to film a new Happy Gilmore-related project. Sandler denied that it had ever been in talks, but he and McDonald kept the d...
Tom Holland Is Miscast In the Ambitious, Messy Cherry: Review
The Pitch: “Sometimes I wonder if life is wasted on me,” Cherry (Tom Holland) drawls wryly to us, godlike and incessant in his narration. When we meet him, he’s holding up a bank, and it’s not the first time. But how would a nice young man fall into such disrepute? From there, we rewind to see the life choices Cherry has made that led him to this point — from his furtive romance with a young classmate named Emily (Ciara Bravo) to the torment and torture of his days as an Army medic in Iraq, to the subsequent opioid addiction that would lead him to a life of bank-robbing to fund his drug habit. CHERK ‘Em If You Got ‘Em: In many ways, it’s going to be hard for Cherry to overcome its first real brush with public notoriety — a strangely-glitched version of the poster that messed...
Tom Morello Tapped as Executive Music Producer for Upcoming Netflix Film Metal Lords
Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello is set to serve as the executive music producer for the upcoming Netflix film Metal Lords, due out later this year. The film is also the first feature-length project in a partnership between Netflix and Game of Thrones showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. A brief press release described Metal Lords as a “coming-of-age comedy” with a plot synopsis many young metalheads can relate to: “Two kids want to start a heavy metal band in a high school where exactly two kids care about heavy metal.” Metal Lords is written and co-produced by Weiss and will be directed by Peter Sollett (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist). Benioff serves as an executive producer, keeping the Game of Thrones pairing intact. The film stars Jaeden Martell (Knives Out, It...
Marvel Reveals Official Spider-Man 3 Title
Spider-Man 3 stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon trolled Marvel fans yesterday by “revealing” a trio of possible titles for the upcoming movie. Now, Marvel has finally set the record straight by unveiling the film’s official name: Spider-Man: No Way Home. On Tuesday, the actors each posted first-look images from the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home follow-up along with what they claimed was the film’s title. Holland (Spider-Man/Peter Parker) shared Spider-Man: Phone Home, Zendaya (MJ) posted Spider-Man: Home Slice, and Batalon (Ned Leeds) teased Spider-Man: Home-Wrecker. It turns out while the preview images were indeed real, those movie titles were misdirects. In a new video posted by Marvel, Holland walks out of director Jon Watts’ office to inform his castmates they’d been g...
David Fincher Teaming with Michael Fassbender for Netflix Drama The Killer
David Fincher is teaming with Michael Fassbender to make The Killer, Fincher’s long-developing assassin drama. The Hollywood Reporter reports the film has been picked up Netflix and will begin filming before the end of 2021. The Killer is an adaptation of the French graphic novel of the same name and has been associated with Fincher since 2007. The project is being written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who previously wrote Fincher’s breakout film, Seven, and also worked on Fight Club and The Game. In a role reminiscent of Bill Hader’s in Barry (without the acting classes), Fassbender will star as an assassin who begins to psychologically crack as he develops a conscience, even as his clients continue to demand his skills. First published in October 1998, the graphic novel is described as ha...
Daisy Ridley Responds to Ted Cruz: “I’m an Emotionally Tortured Jedi Who Doesn’t Leave Their State”
Out of all of the Star Wars’ characters to choose from, Ted Cruz recently declared Cara Dune was the one who broke the most barriers in the franchise’s galactic universe. Of course, this flawed but acceptable stance came only in the wake of Gina Carano’s firing from The Mandalorian, and in taking his position, Cruz decided to dig himself a hole of bias by dissing Rey Skywalker in the process. Now, Daisy Ridley has responded to him with the most perfect comeback. This all started on February 11th when Cruz weighed in on Disney booting Carano from The Mandalorian following a series of “abhorrent” social media posts, including Carano comparing being a Republican today to being Jewish during the Holocaust. Carano did not apologize for her statement but instead doubled down, saying, “They can’t...
Paranormal Activity Sequel and Pet Sematary Prequel Coming to Paramount+
Halloween is nowhere near, but horror fans are still being gifted one of those king-sized treats today. A sequel to Paranormal Activity and a prequel to Pet Sematary are in the works and are set to debut on the new streaming service Paramount+. The platform, which was officially unveiled to investors earlier today, is ViacomCBS’ rebranding of its unsuccessful streaming service CBS All Access, and the company is clearly trying to get off on the right foot with viewers who yearn for a good scare. Both of these clicks are being developed by Paramount’s division Paramount Players, which intends to deliver four to six films to Paramount+ each year (via Variety). The studio hasn’t provided much information about the films themselves, but they’re calling the seventh edition of the ...
Angel Manuel Soto to Helm DC Films’ First Latino Superhero Movie Blue Beetle
DC Films and Warner Bros. have announced that Angel Manuel Soto will direct their upcoming superhero movie Blue Beetle. Soto, known for last year’s Charm City Kings, will work from a script by Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (the upcoming Scarface remake). The studios are obviously aware of the importance of bringing on Latino filmmakers for the project (Soto is Puerto Rican, Dunnet-Alcocer is Mexican), as it will be the DC Extended Universe’s first Latino-led superhero story. The Blue Beetle moniker has been used by numerous individuals since it was first created by Charles Wojtkowski for Fox Comics in 1939. It even bounced around different companies before DC picked it up in the ’80s when Charlton Comics went out of business. The current iteration, and the one that will form the basis for the movi...
Gérard Depardieu Charged with Rape and Sexual Assault
Gérard Depardieu, one of the most lauded French actors of his generation, has been charged with rape and sexual assault. As Variety notes, French press agency AFP broke the news. The charges against the 72-year-old stem from a 2018 incident. A then-22-year-old actress says she had been invited over to his Paris home to rehearse a play, and during that process was twice assaulted. In 2019, the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, but the case was reopened in 2020, and criminal charges were ultimately filed last December. Depardieu’s lawyer, Herve Temime, said his client “completely rejects the accusations.” The attorney for the alleged victim asked that her client’s “private sphere will be respected.” AFP spoke to a “source close to the case,” who said that Depardieu is a frie...
HBO Max Will Not Remove Woody Allen Films
Despite producing a whole miniseries about the disturbing sexual assault allegations against Woody Allen, HBO has no plans to remove his films from its HBO Max library. On Sunday, February 21st, HBO and HBO Max debuted the first episode of Allen v. Farrow, a four-part docu-series investigating claims made by Allen’s adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow. Besides that, the flagship streaming platform from WarnerMedia currently hosts six Allen films, five of which star Dylan’s mother Mia: Another Woman, Broadway Danny Rose, Radio Days, Shadows and Fog, Scoop, and September. And HBO plans to keep them for the foreseeable future. “These titles will remain available in the library,” the company wrote in a statement (via The Wrap), “to allow viewers to make their own informed decisions a...
