Film
Locked Down Masks Up for a Charming Enough Romantic Caper: Review
The Pitch: At the outset of COVID-19 lockdown in London, Linda (Anne Hathaway) and her longtime partner Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor) have broken up. Unfortunately, they’re still quarantined together, and they’re both experiencing career crises — hers over a heartless but lucrative corporate job, his over what he sees as dead-end prospects. Their various neuroses come together when they’re presented with an unusual opportunity to pull off a daring heist. COVID: The Movie: Locked Down is the second big-studio-style movie conceived, produced, and released entirely during the pandemic, after last year’s woeful Songbird. Screenwriter Steven Knight wrote it in the fall; director Doug Liman shot it in the fall; and now it’s hitting HBO Max just months after principal photography wrapped. Though some...
Darren Aronofsky to Direct Brendan Fraser in New A24 Film The Whale
Brendan Fraser is once again set to play the role of a social recluse. As Discussing Film reports, the 52-year-old Blast from the Past actor has been tapped to star in The Whale, director Darren Aronofsky’s new film for A24. The Whale tells the story of a morbidly obese middle-aged man named Charlie (Fraser) and his efforts to rebuild a relationship with his teenage daughter. The father and daughter initially grew apart after Charlie chose to walk out on his family in order to pursue a gay lover. That partner eventually died, and Charlie sought comfort in food. Due to his compulsive eating, he eventually grew to weigh 600 pounds. The film is based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter. Also titled The Whale, since debuting Off-Broadway in 2012, the production has earned both the prestigious Drama ...
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem to Play Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in New Movie
Nearly 70 years after it went off the air, I Love Lucy is coming to the big screen. A new feature film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is in the works from Aaron Sorkin, and he plans to cast none other than Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the iconic TV couple. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two are in talks to play the beloved I Love Lucy creators and stars. The movie, titled Being the Ricardos, will be written and directed by Sorkin. Amazon Studios is onboard and production will be overseen by Escape Artists’ Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Steve Tisch. Being the Ricardos reportedly takes place during one production week of I Love Lucy. When things get unexpectedly hectic on set, Lucy and Desi are faced with two simultaneous problems: a crisis “that could end their c...
Regina King’s One Night in Miami Is a Quiet and Powerful Meditation on Race: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: On the night of Cassius Clay’s (Eli Goree) historic win over Sonny Liston in 1964, the man who would become Muhammad Ali gathers his friends — Muslim Brotherhood activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), football player Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) — to celebrate, debate, and plan for a new world. Play It Again, Sam: Based on real events, Kemp Powers’ 2013 play is a speculative consideration of what happened when the four African American icons gathered together for one night in 1964. Historically, this is the year that Cooke would be murdered; Malcolm X would be assassinated the following year in 1965. Expanding upon his original source material, Powe...
Arnold Schwarzenegger Gives Rousing Speech Defending Democracy While Holding Sword: Watch
Arnold Schwarzenegger has lived a long and varied life. The first superstar bodybuilder transitioned into a career as one of the biggest movie stars in history, and he followed that up with two terms as the 38th Governor of California. In a video posted to Twitter on January 10th, Ahnald brought all of his considerable talents to bear on America’s wavering democracy, and he did it with historical analogies, deeply personal stories, and of course, an enormous broadsword. Schwarzenegger began by framing himself as “an immigrant to this country,” a man raised in Austria in the shadow of Nazi rule. “I’m very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys,” he said, before turning his ...
Sacha Baron Cohen Calls Trump’s Twitter Ban “The Most Important Moment in the History of Social Media”
It should’ve happened years ago, but Donald Trump was finally permanently suspended from his Twitter account on Friday. After using the platform to incite an attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, the MAGA leader was also temporarily blocked from accessing Facebook and Instagram until at least the end of his presidency, and Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen couldn’t be more excited. “This is the most important moment in the history of social media,” he tweeted on Friday evening. “The world’s largest platforms have banned the world’s biggest purveyor of lies, conspiracies and hate. To every Facebook and Twitter employee, user and advocate who fought for this—the entire world thanks you!” Cohen’s investment in the censorship of Trump didn’t start yesterday. The 49-year-old comedian has...
Xena’s Lucy Lawless Slays Hercules’ Kevin Sorbo for Spreading Misinformation About Capitol Riots
It’s been decades since Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess last had a crossover, but the lead stars of both ’90s shows changed that on social media last night. When Kevin Sorbo, who played the muscular Greek hero, claimed left-wing agitators caused the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, Lucy Lawless herself came to the rescue to obliterate him and stop the spread of misinformation. The digital battle started when Rogan O’Handley, an attorney and Donald Trump supporter, shared a picture of known QAnon and far-right extremists inside the Captiol hallway and suggested they were actually violent Democrats. “Do these look like Trump supporters? Or Leftist agitators disguised as Trump supporters…” he tweeted. Sorbo, who is a Trump supporter himself, amplified that cons...
Zendaya and John David Washington Are a Couple on the Verge of Collapse in First Malcolm & Marie Trailer: Watch
Zendaya and John David Washington star in Malcolm & Marie, one of the first films to be written and shot during quarantine. Ahead of its February 5th premiere on Netflix, the first trailer has been revealed today. The new drama closely examines lovers Malcolm (Washington) and Marie (Zendaya) — delving into their romance, lust and chemistry, as well as their tension, baggage, and flaws. Filmed in black-and-white, their movie unfolds over the course of one night, as a synopsis from Deadline notes, “A filmmaker (Washington) returns home with his girlfriend (Zendaya) following a celebratory movie premiere as he awaits what’s sure to be imminent critical and financial success. The evening suddenly takes a turn as revelations about their relationships begin to surface, testing the stren...
Vanessa Kirby Stands Tall In Netflix’s Shrugworthy Pieces of a Woman: Review
This review was originally part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Pregnant couple Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and Martha (Vanessa Kirby) go through a dangerous labor with a new midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), only for the worst possible outcome to occur. In the months that follow, they each process their grief and anger in different ways. Meanwhile, Martha’s mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), pushes for legal justice that may or may not offer the closure that the family needs. Labour Pains: When people discuss Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, the discussion will inevitably be broken into two parts. Most will focus on the film’s first 33 minutes, which takes place entirely on September 17th and follows – in one long, mostly uninterrupted take – the night...
Julia Fox Dominates with Kinks and Cameras in New Trailer for PVT CHAT: Watch
You can look but don’t touch in the new trailer for PVT CHAT, starring Julia Fox and Peter Vack as a dom cam girl and the sub who loves her. Written and directed by Ben Hozie, the film lit up Fantasia Festival when it premiered there last year. Vack plays Jack, a lonely internet gambler who falls in love via video with a dominatrix named Scarlet (Fox). An already complex relationship grows even more tangled one rainy day when he sees her in person on the streets of New York. The role is one of Fox’s first since her breakout in 2019’s Uncut Gems alongside Adam Sandler. In his B+ review for Consequence of Sound, Mike Vanderbilt wrote that “Hozie empathizes with not only the sex worker, but the people who keep them in business,” adding, “PVT CHAT is a thoroughly modern rom...
Sacha Baron Cohen Says He’s Done Playing Borat
The saga of Borat Margaret Sagdiyev has come to a very nice end. In a new profile in Variety, Sacha Baron Cohen said he’s finished with his most famous creation, and that the fictional Kazakh journalist is now “locked away in the cupboard.” The character had been retired once before, after the release of the 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The satire of Borat is based in surprise. People thought they were talking to a second-rate journalist from a sparsely populated country, and so they didn’t mind sharing their racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism. After the movie became a box office sensation, Cohen thought he’d lost the element of surprise. He began to change his mind in 2018. First, the rise of white nationali...
David Hasselhoff: If New Knight Rider Movie Doesn’t Honor the TV Series, “They’ve Hassled The Hoff”
With ’80s nostalgia in full swing, thanks to TV shows such as Cobra Kai and movies like Wonder Woman 1984, a new Knight Rider movie is of course in the works. While David Hasselhoff is not directly attached to the movie, he is hoping that the filmmakers stay true to the spirit of the original TV series. Hasselhoff starred as Michael Knight alongside a talking car named KITT in the original Knight Rider TV series, which aired from 1982 through 1986 on NBC. While the show has been revived in the form of various TV movies and a 2008 reboot series, it hasn’t gotten the full big-budget film treatment — until now. As Deadline reported over the summer, a big-screen Knight Rider movie is currently being developed by Spyglass Films. Producers James Wan (Furious 7, Saw) and Michael Clear (MacGy...
