Movies

By Emlyn Travis Louis Partridge remembers exactly where he was when he discovered that he had been cast as the noble Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether, in Netflix’s newest film Enola Holmes, out today (September 23). He was in the kitchen of his London home with his mom and dad and, upon discovering that he had gotten the role, promptly shot up the stairs in a celebratory victory lap. Then, he recalls, he packed up his things and took an English literature exam at school. “I was auditioning for Enola Holmes in the run-up to my GSCEs in England, which are these big exams that you take, and I thought: I should be revising for this [exam], but I’ve got this audition in a week, and this is the most important thing I’ve done so far. I want to do this; the exams can wait,” the 17-year...

While many of us were learning to bake sourdough during quarantine, the actors Zendaya and John David Washington filmed a whole movie — and in secret, no less. In July, Deadline broke the news that the two would star in the forthcoming romantic drama, Malcolm & Marie, written and directed by Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, a project that came to life when production for the colorful HBO series was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the highly anticipated black-and-white film is headed for (computer) screens everywhere, after Netflix acquired the film at the Toronto International Film Festival marketplace, beating out HBO, Amazon, Apple, Focus Features, and more. The streaming giant paid an astounding $30 million, reportedly off promo alone. Come through, fa...

By Sara Radin “Do you have to be depressed to write a sad song?” teenager William Miller, played by Patrick Fugit, asks rock star Russell Hammond, played by Billy Crudup, backstage. “Do you have to be in love to write a love song? Is a song better when it really happened to you?” The scene in writer-director Cameron Crowe’s 2000 semi-autobiographical film Almost Famous is one of many in which William’s maturity breaks through his youthful exterior and wardrobe (think white t-shirts and misfit jeans). It’s 1973, and William has been given the opportunity of a lifetime — to profile Hammond’s rising band Stillwater for the cover of Rolling Stone. It’s a gig any writer, let alone a 15-year-old, would dream of, and William’s ditched school, along with his overbearing mother, to make it happen. ...

By Alex Gonzalez HBO Max’s latest film Unpregnant offers a timely update to the traditional road movie, which typically sees a group of friends in search of debaucherous adventures. In this case, ex-best friends Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) and Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) set out for the former to get an abortion in secrecy. There is one particularly poignant scene about midway through the movie when, shortly before arriving at the clinic, the two get into an argument after Veronica’s classmates call her to tell her they solved the mystery of a telltale pregnancy test found in their school’s dumpster. While the test was Veronica’s, her friends insist that it’s Bailey’s. To save face, Veronica agrees — but Bailey overhears, leading her to ditch Veronica. Veronica follows, insisting that she’...