SNL Delivered Their First-Ever Remotely Produced Episode

Joining their late-night, weeknight comedy brothers and sisters in delivering episodes from home, Saturday Night Live filed their first remotely produced episode during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the large ensemble, highly complex sets, celebrity hosts and musical guests, SNL is a very hard show to pull off remotely. You can’t just whip up an instant classic digital short like Grouch via Zoom.

Run DP Melds Drama and Rom-Com Elements in HBO’s New Series

Merritt Wever won a comedy Emmy for Nurse Jackie, picked up a drama Emmy as the rifle-wrangling pioneer in Godless and last year wowed critics for her empathetic turn as a sex crimes detective in Unbelievable. Now she’s mixing it up in HBO’s black-humored thriller Run (it premiered this past Sunday night, April 12). Job one for cinematographer Matthew Clark: capture the chemistry between Wever’s bored housewife Ruby and Domhnall Gleeson,

Check out the Surprise Trailer for Groundhog Day 2!

When Sony Pictures released this trailer for what they said was Groundhog Day 2, we thought that this was the all-time greatest sneak reveal of a film we had no idea had even been in the works, let alone shot and completed! What better surprise film than a sequel to the legendary 1993 comedy by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray as a misanthropic weatherman forced to relive the same day over and over and over again,

Taika Waititi Teases His Thor: Love and Thunder Script

You had to know that if Thor: Ragnarok and Oscar-winning screenwriter of Jojo Rabbit Taikia Waititi is going to “live-watch” his own film on Instagram, he’s going to bring it. And that’s precisely what the mega-talented writer/director did last night when he showed up on Instagram to live-watch Ragnarok and ended up dishing about his upcoming sequel, Thor: Love and Thunder, introducing special guests,

Disney+ Reveals Maggie Simpson Short Film Playdate With Destiny Coming Tomorrow

Yes, your streaming options are bountiful, but there’s something special about finding out there’s a brand new animated short revolving around The Simpsons’ most reliably adorable character, Maggie. Disney+ has announced that Playdate With Destiny, a new animated short film starring the one and only Maggie, will be available for streaming starting tomorrow, Friday, April 10. Disney+ made the announcement via Twitter, with a note from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Matt Reeves Talks The Batman & His Favorite Previous Caped Crusader Films

On January 28 of this year (a lifetime ago, I know), The Batman began filming in London. Writer/director Matt Reeves was finally shooting his vision of the Caped Crusader (played by Robert Pattinson) plying his dangerous trade in a grittier, more noir version of Gotham. Reeves had been working on the script for years and had assembled a fantastic cast and crew. Then production was shut down on  March 14—along with essentially over other major film and television series—due to the spread COVID-19.

Netflix Reveals First Images of Steve Carell’s Space Force + Release Date & Cast

When Netflix announced that it had tapped Steve Carell and The Office creator Greg Daniels to create a new show for the streaming giant, hopes were high that we’d get something as irresistibly funny (and perfectly cast) as their now legendary collaboration. We now have our first glimpse at their effort, Space Force, which stars Carell as four-star general and highly accomplished veteran pilot Mark R. Naird,

CBS Bringing Back Sunday Night Movies, Sony Pictures Reveals KIDS ZONE!

Studios all across the world are dealing with production shutdowns due to the spread of COVID-19. Now that we’re weeks into this unprecedented scenario, we’re starting to see how the folks who make our films and television shows are getting creative. Universal Pictures is already running first-run films in your home, with other studios following suit, including Warner Bros., Disney, and Lionsgate. HBO has made 500 hours worth of programming free for a limited time,

Shazam! Director Reveals How He Made His Horror Short at Home

Last week Shazam! director David. F Sandberg revealed that he’d spent part of his quarantine getting back to his roots and filming the horror short Shadowed. Working with his wife and collaborator Lotta Lotsen, Sandberg conceived of, shot, and edited this three-minute creep-fest all without leaving his home. Now, Sandberg has released a video showing exactly how he pulled this off.

You probably won’t be surprised that Shadowed was a complex undertaking.

Good Deeds Give us Reason to Hope (And Applaud)

If you’re lucky enough to be able to social distance and healthy enough to “simply” worry and absorb a relentless amount of bad news, then you’re probably primed for a little bit of positivity. If you live in a city where there’s nightly applause for our heroic healthcare workers, you’ve gotten a taste of how good it feels to take a moment to marvel at the courage and compassion of people all around us. People we usually don’t think about that much about.

Chris Hemsworth is a Mercenary With Nothing to Lose in Extraction Trailer

Perhaps what we need right now, those of us lucky enough to be able to stay home and practice social distancing, is a good, old-fashioned action flick. Something big. Something relentlessly entertaining. Something starring a well-known and liked star and written, directed and produced by folks who know their way around a spectacle. Well, we’ve got all that in spades in Extraction, Netflix’s upcoming thriller starring Chris Hemsworth,

Little Fires Everywhere Cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron on Crafting Chaos Beneath the Surface

One of the many, many odd things about life mid-pandemic is how suddenly bizarre it is to watch shows and films that depict people touching, hugging, kissing, and gathering in large numbers. Even the folks who just filmed these series agree. There’s a kind of pre-coronavirus surreality to it, and if the show or movie doesn’t hold your attention, you can, at least for this viewer, find yourself more invested in how weird it is to see people cavalierly not keeping their distance than you are in the actual story.

John Krasinski & Emily Blunt Reunited the Hamilton Cast on Some Good News

The second episode of Some Good News, John Krasinski’s charming DIY series on YouTube, is epic. Not that the first glimpse of Krasinski’s surprise show, which is produced with help from his talented family, wasn’t sensational. The first episode included an interview between Krasinski and Steve Carell about their work on The Office, which was timed to the show’s 15th anniversary, some love for the heroes working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic,

Never Have I Ever Director Kabir Akhtar on Filming Mindy Kaling’s New Netflix Series

When director Kabir Akhtar heard the news that producer/writer/star Mindy Kaling was, along with co-creator Lang Fisher, putting together a new series at Netflix that would focus on a first-generation Indian American teenage girl, he thought, I need to be a part of this.

“Just the idea that a show could be made about a first-generation South Asian American,” Akhtar says, a first-generation South Asian American himself, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia,

Writer/Director Eliza Hittman on her Bracing, Brilliant Film Never Rarely Sometimes Always

When Eliza Hittman, writer/director of Never Rarely Sometimes Always, took the stage after the premiere of her film at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24th of this year, she was greeted with rapturous applause. She and the stars of her film have gained critical acclaim for her intimate, powerful portrayal of one teenager’s perilous journey of the soul. Never Rarely Sometimes Always is about the challenges facing 17-year-old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan),

HBO Makes 500 Hours’ Worth of Programming Available for Free

There have been watch lists galore since millions of people started practicing social distancing, self-quarantining, and sheltering in place due to the spread of COVID-19. Rian Johnson and Edgar Wright shared their favorite 70s musicals and comedies, respectively, while James Gunn offered a top-10 list of films you probably haven’t seen but should. Our own Desson Thomson gave us a thorough compendium of shows and films we could be enjoying,

Watch Shazam Director David F. Sandberg’s New Short Horror Film

Look, the most important thing for everyone to do right now, those of us not in essential jobs and not on the front lines of fighting the spread of COVID-19, is to practice social distancing. There was a whole flurry of Tweets going around at the beginning of the pandemic, reminding us what some other famous folks did during their quarantine. For example, did you know that Shakespeare wrote “King Lear”

A Quiet Place: Part II & Top Gun: Maverick Get New Release Dates

While all dates are subject to change at the moment considering the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in, there is some news on the film release front worth sharing. Paramount Pictures has announced that two of their big releases for this year have new release dates. John Krasinski’s highly anticipated A Quiet Place: Part II and the return of Tom Cruise’s speed-needing super pilot in Top Gun: Maverick will be out on the first weekend in September and during Christmas,

Late-Night TV Adapts to a Changed World

As the spread of COVID-19 stalled productions and delayed film premieres, you could make a case that the most visible manifestation of the global pandemic on the entertainment industry was the lack of late-night TV shows. Starting around mid-March, every single one of the late-night programs, from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to Full Frontal With Samantha Bee to Conan, went dark. The folks that millions of Americans invite into their living rooms and bedrooms every night,

ESPN’s Michael Jordan Documentary The Last Dance Reveals 1st Trailer

There’s a certain beat that will instantly transport those of us who were avid sports fans in the 90s. The beat comes from a song (which I’d never known until this moment, after Googling it) by the British rock band The Alan Parsons Project. The song is called “Sirius.” This brief instrumental, under two minutes long, was adopted by the Chicago Bulls to introduce their starting lineup during their epic run of six NBA championships between 1991 and 1998.