Film
R.I.P. Hugh Keays-Byrne, Mad Max’s Toecutter and Immortan Joe Dead at 73
Hugh Keays-Byrne, the Anglo-Australian actor best known for his roles in the Mad Max film franchise, has died at 73. The news was announced by his friend, the filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith, in a Facebook post. No cause of death was given. Via IMDB, Keays-Byrne was born in Kashmir, India, the son of British citizens. As a child he moved with his parents to England, and in his twenties he performed with the legendary Royal Shakespeare Company. As The Independent reported, he arrived in Australia on a 1973 RSC tour and soon booked his first movie role in the Australian cult biker film Stone. His scene-stealing turn as Toad attracted the attention of George Miller, then plotting a kind of biker movie of his own. In 1979, Keays-Byrne starred as the axe-wielding villain Toe...
PJ Harvey’s A Dog Called Money Documentary to Premiere Online
PJ Harvey has spent the better part of this year brushing off her catalog with an in-depth reissue series. It looks like the alt-rock icon’s canonizing won’t stop there. Earlier today, she announced the 2019 documentary PJ Harvey – A Dog Called Money will finally receive its North American premiere on December 7th. Watch the official trailer below. PJ Harvey – A Dog Called Money chronicles the making of her 2016 album The Hope Six Demolition Project. For it, Harvey accompanied photojournalist Seamus Murphy on his reporting trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington, D.C. Along the way, he wound up capturing a larger story about the experiences that inspired her album and the complicated process she went through to create it, later turning those filmed segments into a proper document...
Studio Ghibli Shares Trailer for First Fully-CGI Movie Earwig and the Witch: Watch
Studio Ghibli has shared the first trailer for Earwig and the Witch, the Japanese animation studio’s first fully-CGI movie. The story is based on a 2011 book of the same name by the late British writer Diana Wynne Jones, best known in film circles for providing the source material to Howl’s Moving Castle. It follows a brilliant young orphan named Earwig who has the misfortune to be adopted by the evil witch Bella Yaga. With brains, a bit of magic, and a friendly talking cat, Earwig sets out to escape the witch’s haunted house. The new trailer is in Japanese, and it’s not clear if the title has been correctly translated. While sources like Ghiblioteque are reporting it as Earwig, the movie was initially announced in English as Aya and the Witch. But the two-minute clip does a...
Steven Spielberg Secures Restraining Order Against Stalker
Steven Spielberg knows a thing or two about close encounters — he’s currently living one. As TMZ reports, the blockbuster filmmaker has secured court-ordered protection from a woman he believes is threatening to murder him. According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Spielberg filed a restraining order against a woman named Sarah Char. He claimed Char has been harassing him for months and was told by law enforcement she even purchased a gun to kill him. What’s more, Spielberg stated that Char dropped into his Twitter DMs, writing: “If I have to personally MURDER people for stealing my IPs‚ I WILL. Get me?” No word on what IPs Char is referring to, though let’s hope it’s not one of the dozens of pop culture Easter eggs found within 2018’s Ready Player One. All joking aside, the restrainin...
Netflix Confirms Elliot Page for Umbrella Academy Season 3
Elliot Page will return as Vanya Hargreeves in the third season of Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. The streaming giant confirmed the news hours after Page announced he is a gender non-binary transgender person on Tuesday morning. “So proud of our superhero! WE LOVE YOU ELLIOT! Can’t wait to see you return in season 3!” the official Netflix account tweeted at Page in support. In the series, which wrapped up its second season this past summer, Vanya is a cisgender woman with superhero powers. Insiders tell Variety that there are no are no plans to change the character’s gender as of now. On that topic, Nick Adams, director of transgender media at GLAAD, told Variety: “Trans actors can and do play both trans and cisgender characters. I’m sure Elliot will continue to be brilliant in Umbrella A...
Peter Dinklage to Mop Up Crime in The Toxic Avenger Reboot
Peter Dinklage is going from Avengers to The Toxic Avenger. The Eitri actor has been cast in the upcoming Toxic Avenger reboot from Legendary Pictures, according to Deadline. A modern update of the cult classic Troma production, The Toxic Avenger tells the tale of nebbish Melvin Ferd, a “98-pound weakling” who works as a health club janitor. Tormented by local bullies, he’s tossed from a window and lands in a barrel of nuclear waste. He emerges as the super-powered Toxic Avenger (think Swamp Thing meets Deadpool) who rises to defend his community from corruption. One of the most successful B-movies ever, the 1984 original spawned three sequels, an animated kid’s show, a Marvel comic book, and even a stage musical. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, who directed the first film, are on ...
What’s Streaming on Hulu in December 2020
Hulu is heading to Mordor in December. Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien who don’t already own The Lord of the Rings trilogy will find solace in revisiting The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Hell, it wasn’t too long ago their theatrical releases were a holiday tradition. Beyond the Eye of Sauron are a handful of Hulu originals: The Hardy Boys are back for modern times, Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow is now free to stream, and You Cannot Kill David Arquette is bringing the meta humor. It’s not much, but there’s a silver lining to the lean offerings. By the end of the month, the streaming service is losing a ton of films — from its Bond collection to The Bourne Identity films to all the Star Treks — which means you better get your binge on. Check out the full list ...
What’s Streaming on Disney+ in December 2020
Disney+ is bringing some much-needed Soul to Christmas. Yes, on December 25th, the Mouse House is rolling out its would-be Pixar blockbuster on their streaming service. Unlike this past September’s release of Mulan, however, Soul will be completely free to subscribers. Consider it a gift from Mickey. Of course, that’s not the only present to unwrap this month. There’s also Jillian Bell’s new comedy Godmothered, the exhaustively titled High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special, and the remaining episodes of The Mandalorian Season 2. Editors’ Picks Elsewhere, nostalgics can enjoy watching Tom Hanks play Josh Baskin in Big, head to the clouds with Kurt Russell in Sky High, and pretend like they’re watching Max Keeble’s Big Move for the first time. Into the Woods is somewhere...
Corey Taylor Stars in Horror Film Bad Candy, Says Slipknot Could Release New Album in 2021
Longtime horror cinephile Corey Taylor has filmed a starring role in the upcoming movie Bad Candy alongside Zach Galligan of Gremlins fame. In addition to discussing the film, Taylor hinted in a separate interview that Slipknot could release their next album in 2021. The movie is structured in the classic horror anthology format. Taylor plays a radio DJ who weaves scary stories to his listeners — a task well-suited for the voice of Slipknot — with his co-host (played by Galligan). In a Creepshow-inspired twist, the stories come to life in graphic reenactments that owe much to the great horror films of yore such as Halloween and, of course, Gremlins. “It’s a pretty cool little horror movie that has a linear story going through it, but it’s really kind of made up of different short...
Hollywood Will Never Stop Loving the Music Biopic
This past week saw the release of Stardust, a biopic about David Bowie’s first trip to the United States. If you’ve seen any piece of media related to the film, you probably know that the movie was received poorly — to say the least. This isn’t surprising, though. When the film’s first trailer dropped months ago, the film was immediately scorched online for being a very blatant and very poorly executed attempt to piggyback off the recent success of other musical biopics such as 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody and last year’s Rocketman. Whereas those two films at least had the wherewithal to secure the rights to their stars’ likeness and discography, Stardust opted out of either of those things. Even so, the film chugged along on the strength of its premise alone, but mostly because it’s a musical...
Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock Is Joyfully Intoxicating: Review
This review originally ran in September 2020 as part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: In London’s West Indian community in 1980, a house party brews. The men haul furniture out to the backyard and bring in huge speakers to replace it, while the women crowd into the kitchen, cooking goat curry and plaintains while singing and laughing with each other. Men and women file in one at a time, paying the bouncer while the DJ pumps in the songs of Carl Douglas, Sister Sledge, Janet Kay — romantic reggae, “Lover’s Rock”. This is the setting for Steve McQueen‘s Lovers Rock, a glimpse into the Blues parties that served as an important space for Black Londoners of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s to find community, solidarity, and love, as a rotating ensemble of characters s...
R.I.P. Dave Prowse, Darth Vader Actor Dies at 85
Dave Prowse, the British actor who portrayed Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died at the age of 85. A former champion weightlifter and bodybuilder, the 6-foot-7 Prowse was asked to audition for the roles of Darth Vader and Chewbacca after Star Wars director George Lucas saw him in A Clockwork Orange, where he played as Frank Alexander’s bodyguard, Julian. Ultimately, Prowse tried out for the role of Darth Vader, because as he explained, “everyone remembers the villain.” Prowse filled Darth Vader’s suit for the first three Star Wars movies, including for legendary scenes such as when Darth Vader threw Emperor Palpatine off the balcony. As Lucas wanted a “darker voice,” the character’s lines were later overdubbed by ones read by James Earl Jones in post-production. Fo...
