We finally have an idea of just how suicidal the mission will be. Warner Bros. has revealed the synopsis for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, which “features a collection of the most degenerate delinquents in the DC lineup,” as they put it. Up until now, we’ve known very, very little about Gunn’s vision for his reboot of sorts. We learned during the DC FanDome event that the film would riff on epic 1970s war movies. We learned that major characters could die at any time. We learned that the cast had a lot of fun making it. But now, we know just what these scoundrels are up to.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.
For those not steeped in DC Comics lore, know that the location of Corto Maltese is where a rebel uprising takes place. Corto Maltese is a small island off the coast of South America, and it becomes the locus of a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. America backs the Corto Maltese government, the Soviets are allied with the rebels. The U.S. sends in none other than Superman to quell the uprising, but, things get out of hand.
Now we know what you’re wondering—is Henry Cavill going to make an appearance as Superman here?! Doubtful, but, you never know. The synopsis is meaty, but of course, leaves a lot of mysteries to be solved. Who is the Squad searching for? Who in the Squad is gonna pay the ultimate price? Who might pop up to see that they do? Will there be any cameos from other DC films (like, you know, Superman?)
Once the first trailer is revealed, we’ll learn a bit more.
For more on The Suicide Squad, check out these stories:
And now we’ve got our most sustained look yet at director Craig Brewer’s Coming 2 America, which really, couldn’t come at a better time. This long-awaited sequel to 1988’s Coming to America brings back a whole royal family’s worth of original characters. The ensemble is led, of course, by Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem, and the new trailer reveals he has risen in the royal ranks to become King. With the newly-crowned King Akeem preparing to take over Zamunda, a little detour is in order when he finds out he’s got an heir living in America. Not only America, of course, but New York City, where Akeem’s initial journey landed him all those years ago. (It still brings a smile to my face remembering when Prince Akeem looked at a map of the city in the original and, very rationally, assumed Queens was where he needed to go to find one.)
Returning to America means King Akeem needs to bring his trusted advisor and good pal Semmi (Arsenio Hall), but Semmi is hardly the only familiar face on hand. And as they did in the original, Murphy and Hall take on multiple characters, from barbers to reverends to, in Murphy’s case, Sexual Chocolate singer Randy Watson. The trailer is gleeful—one highlight among many is when Leslie Jones appears (she’s the King’s former flame Mary Junson, and the mother of his heir) and joyously says of her son, “he’s supposed to be, like, the Prince of Wakanda!” You get the sense this film was as fun to make for its cast as it should be to watch.
Coming 2 America comes from a script from Barry W. Blaustein, David Sheffield, and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. Joining Murphy, Hall, and Jones are James Earl Jones, Shari Headley, Wesley Snipes, Garcelle Beauvais, KiKi Layne, Teyana Taylor, John Amos, Tracy Morgan, Vanessa Bell Calloway, and Louie Anderson.
Coming 2 America premieres on Amazon Prime Video on March 5. Check out the trailer below:
Featured image: Arsenio Hall and Eddie Murphy star in COMING 2 AMERICA. Photo Courtesy of Amazon Studios. Photo Courtesy of Amazon Studios Quantrell D. Colbert/Amazon Studios
In partnership with producer Timur Bekmambetov, who is known for the innovative film style Screenlife as exampled by Unfriended and Searching, co-writer and director Carey Williams offers his feature debut with a modern and of-the-moment adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet,” R#J, told entirely through social media and smartphone screens. Using an entirely Black and Brown cast, and blending text messages and Instagram posts with timeless Shakespearian language, the film draws audiences into the story with its visually sumptuous imagery and compelling performances. The film stars Camaron Engels as Romeo and Francesca Noel as Juliet, who center a strong ensemble that helps blend high drama and selfies seamlessly.
Just after its premiere at Sundance 2021, The Credits spoke to Williams about how he crafted this inventive, inclusive take on a classic.
Carey Williams, director R#J, an official selection of the NEXT section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lizeth Sandoval.
Much of the forward movement and perspectives in R#J are expressed outside the language from the play. How did you find the balance between traditional speeches and this new form of storytelling?
It was a trial and error. We previz-ed the film before we shot it, and we had an opportunity to see how it flowed, what worked, and what didn’t. After we did that, we did some rewriting. I tried to look at each of the scenes and pick out the Shakespearian language that was going to get across as much as I needed succinctly, and then use the modern-day vernacular to augment in places. It was a back and forth. Going in, it wasn’t like I definitely knew exactly what I would use.
This film really expresses the destructive and creative force of social media and the disparity between how we present ourselves onscreen and in real life. What were some of the discussions around that?
I didn’t want to demonize social media in any way, but I thought it would be irresponsible not to point out some of the ills of it. Romeo and Juliet were able to connect with each other through social media, which is a beautiful thing, but the balance of that is that they were getting hurt through it as well. There were discussions about it, looking at the film and figuring out how we are able to get closer to our characters and empathize with them, and what social media apps, or what amount of social media is going to help us do that, as opposed to just seeing them on FaceTime talking to each other. What is that balance? With a film like this, there’s no playbook as to how to do that, because there aren’t a lot of examples. You go in with open arms to embrace the newness of this format and this visual language, and use your heart for what feels right.
How much of these characters’ social media personas were created by the performers? For example, Siddiq Saunderson’s Mercutio has a very subjective look and attitude, and they are reflected in his online presence.
The actors absolutely made these characters. For instance, I had talks with Siddiq about his Mercutio, and we discussed that he’s about anarchy. That’s why the name online is ‘Merc the Anarchist.’ I feel like that character was living out loud, out of the box, and he took that and ran with it. They all did. They all brought so much to their creations. They wanted them to feel honest like kids today, to have them feel authentic and grounded. We are bringing this 400-year-old story into modern day, and we’re coloring it with what’s happening in the world today. They did a great job of doing that. I just got out of the way and let them go for it. The impulsiveness of being a teenager, that hot fire that you can feel for someone, like the way Romeo and Juliet feel, comes across, but also in a way that you can believe. There were some elements we had to ask ourselves how we could do, putting it in the context of today.
The film is anchored through the music used, which I think bonds Shakespeare’s language and the Screenlife. It’s two forms of poetry coming together. What was the process of finding the right songs and building character and story through song and René Boscio’s score?
The music was very important to me, as it was a guiding force in making this film, so I picked the music. I was very hardcore about what I wanted and where. With René, I’d met him a few years ago, and had wanted to work with him. I think he’s very talented. We watched the film and talked about what I wanted, which was for him to push the envelope. In the film there’s a tonal shift that happens, where it feels very different, and that’s when it becomes more about the score. He was pushing himself and presenting options and being very thoughtful, so he definitely had his ideas that worked perfectly. There was not a lot of back and forth, because he really was so in it. For the songs, I really wanted to mash up the old and the new, like with the older hip hop and the newer tracks. Everything for me in this movie was a blending of the old and the new, and that is definitely represented in the music.
And it’s not just one genre.
I think that’s important too, because growing up as a young Black kid I listened to lots of different things. People would ask me why there’d be something on, and why I didn’t just listen to soul or hip hop. I didn’t want to be in a box. I wanted to appreciate all kinds of music, and enjoy whatever moves me. That was really important for me to show in this film. The movie is about people of color, but we have different styles of music we love, from ambient to classical and jazz to hip hop. I was very conscious of making that choice.
As a filmmaker, you have a passion for color, contrast, and line that has a sensual quality. How did you advance that aesthetic for R#J, and what kinds of conversations did you have with production designer Evelyn Ellias? Her designs are often inspired by magical realism.
We really dove into color a lot with this, and Evelyn did a great job, exampled by the party, with dramatic and complimentary colors and color saturation, making it feel so authentic and gorgeous. For the visuals, I think about Instagram. It’s very colorful, and it pops and pulls you in just from the color and contrast. I wanted this film to have a little bit of a surreal and fairy tale quality, and not be so grounded in realism, and pushing the colors would help with that. Between Evelyn’s work and cinematographer Diego Madrigal, we were able to push that and get some nice color palettes. We really wanted to expand on what might realistically be there.
R#J premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT section. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Featured image: Camaron Engels and Francesca Noel appear in R#J by Carey Williams, an official selection of the NEXT section at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Charles Murphy.
Well folks, we’ve finally got our first, admittedly blurry look at Jared Leto’s Joker in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Snyder has revealed the image of Leto’s version of the Clown Prince of Chaos, who will be involved in some capacity in his upcoming HBO Max cut. The Joker was not a part of the original theatrical release of Justice League, which was shepherded by director Joss Whedon after Snyder had to leave the production. Snyder added Leto’s sociopathic Gothamite to the new scenes he shot with some of the original cast.
Leto’s Joker was a fairly prominent part of David Ayer’s 2016 film Suicide Squad. The last we saw of him in that film, his attempt to rescue Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) went down in flames when his chopper was shot down. At the time, Leto’s Joker was going to appear in future DC films, but that never panned out. Until now.
We’ll be seeing Leto’s Joker mix it up with the Justice League gang in a little more than a month—HBO recently announced that Snyder’s long-awaited cut will stream on March 18. We had a sneaking suspicion that the film might drop a bit earlier than we’d originally suspected, and sure enough, here we are. After a fervent online community agitated for a #SnyderCut, HBO Max stepped into the breach and Snyder was able to do some re-shooting, new VFX work, new ADR work, and generally create the movie he’d intended to make all along.
Whether Leto’s Joker was originally part of that intention, or, if Snyder utilized his sudden momentum and added the most iconic villain in the DC canon, is largely moot now. Ready or not, Leto’s Joker gets to make his second appearance.
Here’s the official synopsis from HBO Max:
In ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.
For more on Justice League, check out these stories:
Yesterday, we published our interview with MLK/FBI director Sam Pollard, who is also the director behind HBO’s upcoming Black Art: In the Absence of Light, which will shed light on some of the best Black visual artists working today—and likely introduce them to many folks who haven’t seen their work or heard their names before. In discussing his long career making documentaries on immensely gifted Black talents, which Black Art: In the Absence of Light zeroes in on, Pollard said to us, “[Progress] takes a long time. It’s always uphill. But the thing to do is to keep on the road. Keep fighting, keep your voice out there, be as creative as possible. The challenge is to stay on the path because the struggle will always be there. Dr. King knew that.”
The visionary artists Pollard’s film focuses on include Carrie Mae Weems, Kara Walker, Kerry James Marshall, Amy Sherald, Theaster Gates, and more. A new trailer from HBO reveals why Black Art is a must-see for any art lover longing to revel in the works of some of the most brilliant artists working today. The doc also explores the groundbreaking 1976 exhibition “Two Centuries of Black American Art,” curated by the late African American artist and scholar David Driskell. The exhibition was initially held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but it eventually traveled to Dallas, Atlanta, and Brooklyn.
“David Driskell’s monumental exhibit achieved two great things,” said Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in a statement released by HBO. “It simultaneously consolidated the history of the canon of African American artists, and it launched a revolution in Black representation as well. And it is David’s genius, his double-contribution to the history of African American Art—recording its past in stunning detail and thereby contributing enormously to the astonishingly creative and productive cultural moment we are in—that we celebrate in this film.”
Check out the trailer below. Black Art: In the Absence of Light premieres on HBO on February 9.
Here’s the official synopsis from HBO:
Firmly rooted in the history of the Black American experience, BLACK ART: IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT, debuting TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9 (9:00-10:25 p.m. ET/PT), is directed and produced by award-winning documentarian Sam Pollard (HBO’s “Atlanta Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children”). A vital and illuminating introduction to the work of some of the foremost African American visual artists working today, including Theaster Gates, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald, and Carrie Mae Weems, the film is a testament to the indelible contributions of Black American artists in today’s contemporary art world. BLACK ART: IN THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT is executive produced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Thelma Golden serves as consulting producer. The film will be available on HBO and to stream on HBO Max.
To get a richer sense of what Black Art: In the Absence of Light, the images HBO has made available will help:
“She Had An Inside And An Outside Now And Suddenly She Knew How Not To Mix Them,” Amy Sherald, 2018. Courtesy HBO“Untitled (Club Couple),” Kerry James Marshall, 2014. Courtesy HBO.“Cornelius,” Jordan Casteel, 2014. Courtesy HBO“Insurrection” (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On)’, Kara Walker, 2000. Courtesy HBO.
For more on HBO and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Wakanda forever. With WandaVision now halfway through its run as the first-ever Marvel series to bow on Disney+, Disney has now tapped Black Panther co-writer/director Ryan Coogler to start developing a new series for their streamer. Coogler has a new five-year deal with Disney, via his Proximity Media, to develop a Wakanda-based Disney+ series, as well as working on other shows within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“Ryan Coogler is a singular storyteller whose vision and range have made him one of the standout filmmakers of his generation,” said Disney executive chairman Bob Iger in a statement. “With Black Panther, Ryan brought a groundbreaking story and iconic characters to life in a real, meaningful, and memorable way, creating a watershed cultural moment. We’re thrilled to strengthen our relationship and look forward to telling more great stories with Ryan and his team.”
Coogler is currently working on Black Panther 2, his follow-up to his game-changing 2018 juggernaut film that earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture (to name just one of its noms). Black Panther, of course, starred the late, great Chadwick Boseman, and how Coogler and his creative team handle Boseman’s passing will be one of the many challenges of the sequel. Black Panther 2 currently has a July 8, 2022 release date, and is aiming to start production this July.
Like WandaVision and the many other Marvel series that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has set for Disney+, Coogler’s Wakanda series will tie in directly to the larger MCU.
“It’s an honor to be partnering with The Walt Disney Company. Working with them on Black Panther was a dream come true. As avid consumers of television, we couldn’t be happier to be launching our television business with Bob Iger, Dana Walden, and all the amazing studios under the Disney umbrella,” Coogler said in a statement. “We look forward to learning, growing, and building a relationship with audiences all over the world through the Disney platforms. We are especially excited that we will be taking our first leap with Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, and their partners at Marvel Studios where we will be working closely with them on select MCU shows for Disney+. We’re already in the mix on some projects that we can’t wait to share.”
As WandaVision blazes towards its finale, more Marvel series are poised to bow on Disney+ soon. Falcon and the Winter Soldier is due in March, while Loki is due in May. It’s a no-brainer for Disney to deploy one of Marvel’s most beloved properties via the prodigiously talented Coogler to further expand the MCU on the small screen.
For more on Disney and Disney+, check out these stories:
After nearly two decades as a news reporter, Kemp Powers knew a good story when he found one. Discovering that four cultural icons — heavyweight champ Cassius Clay, soon to take the name Muhammad Ali; activist Malcolm X; crooner Sam Cooke; and NFL superstar Jim Brown — had hung out together in Miami in 1964 inspired him to recreate that night.
Powers’ play, “One Night in Miami,” enjoyed a string of regional productions before it was staged at the prestigious Donmar Warehouse in London in 2016, earning an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Play.
Powers’ script for the movie version of One Night in Miami, directed by Regina King and available from Amazon, doesn’t change the dynamic of the high octane ensemble. “I preserved the general idea that it’s a private conversation and we’re a fly on the wall. That requires it to be in a contained space but other than that, it’s really quite different,” says Powers in a telephone interview. “Only about half of the play made it into the film because it had to be a different story.”
That story centers on the 1964 night in Miami after Clay (Eli Goree) wins the Heavyweight Championship of the World. He then meets up with his friends at the Hampton House Hotel where the four men, each at a crossroads in his life, talk for hours about their positions in society as powerful Black men. Brown (Aldis Hodge) is ready to retire from football and mulling offers from Hollywood; Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is preparing to leave the Nation of Islam; Clay is about to become a Muslim; and Cooke (Leslie Odom, Jr.) is eager to expand his music stardom to a larger stage.
(L-R) Leslie Odom Jr., Eli Goree, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Aldis Hodge star in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI
Powers conceded that along the way some tried to persuade him to make Ali the star of the show. “I would counter that by saying, ‘you’re not allowing yourself to be in this moment in 1964.’ On this night, the most famous person in the room, by far, is Sam Cooke. And the closest second is Jim Brown. You’re not even acknowledging the fame dynamic of this night, let alone the power dynamic. Ali, at 22 years old, is more of a younger brother with his three big brothers as he’s about to make the biggest decision of his life.”
ALDIS HODGE and LESLIE ODOM JR. star in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Photo: Patti Perret Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Powers says any suggestion that he create an unequal dynamic “makes me think people want the very thing I was trying not to do, which is write fan fiction. This is not that. It is fictionalized but it’s 100 percent powered by the facts. That’s who they were and what was happening in each of their lives in the days leading up to that night.”
Now, each of the movie’s four rising young actors is being touted for awards consideration, along with Powers and Regina King, the Emmy and Oscar-winning actress making her feature directing debut and proving she is as proficient behind the camera as she is in front of it.
One Night in Miami is one of two acclaimed big-screen projects for Powers this year. He also co-wrote and co-directed Pixar’s Soul, now on Disney+ and a frontrunner for 2020’s best-animated film awards.
Besides being a news reporter for, among others, Newsweek, Forbes, and Yahoo, Powers wrote the 2004 book, The Shooting: A Memoir, a personal account of a harrowing trauma in 1988 when he was 14. Playing with a gun he thought was unloaded in his Brooklyn home one afternoon, Powers accidentally shot and killed his friend. After publication of his memoir, Powers was doing research for another book that eventually became One Night in Miami, the African-American male experience encapsulated into a moment in time.
Director Regina King with Eli Goree on the set of ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Credit: Patti Perret/Amazon Studios
“When I first discovered this was a real night, it was before so much was online. Research and reporting involved getting on planes and going to the Library of Congress or getting public records,” says Powers. “It is unfortunate but people don’t realize you had to go on foot to get things in print [before] digital. There was also a certain joy to that. When you come across some book that’s out of print, or some new document and you go, ‘I’m holding in my hands this tangible thing’ and it goes into the box marked ‘Jim Brown’ or “Malcolm X,’ you feel like you have this treasure trove.
“Reading FBI files is always fascinating. Several [of the men] were being tracked by the FBI and under the Freedom of Information Act, it’s possible to read the files…and read the editorializing from the federal agents in those files. That was illuminating. Jim Brown [is] so well known as an athlete and of course as a Blaxploitation star but many don’t know he actually wrote his own autobiography in the 1960s when he was still a pretty young man. That’s how I discovered that moment in the film when he visits the Beau Bridges character. That was actually a real moment that he discusses in his autobiography that most people don’t know exists.”
Aldis Hodge and Director Regina King on the set of ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Photo: Patti Perret/Amazon Studios
But Powers also added and revised scenes once production was underway and King was at the helm as director. As such an accomplished actress, it’s not surprising that she was able to get such nuanced performances from the four leads. But Powers says her mastery went deeper.
“As a director, she brought so much. She was so inquisitive,” he says. “For example, there’s the moment in the film when Malcolm calls his daughter and has a conversation with her, and he leaves her hidden notes. That came about because Regina actually reached out to his daughter who told her that story. Regina called me and said, ‘maybe we should have that in the film.’ So I wrote the scene. It shows a tender, vulnerable moment of him as a father that would not have been there and it came from Regina feeling what was missing in certain moments [thanks to] her own inquisitiveness. Without her, the film would not be what it is.”
Kingsley Ben-Adir stars in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI Photo: Patti Perret/Amazon Studios
For more on One Night In Miami, check out our interview with cinematographer Tami Reiker.
Featured image: ELI GOREE, KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR, ALDIS HODGE, and LESLIE ODOM JR. star in ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI. Photo: Courtesy of Amazon Studios. Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Assuming that if you’re reading this, you’re all caught up with Marvel’s first-ever Disney+ series WandaVision, showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman’s gleefully odd show about the MCU’s most beloved odd couple. The fourth episode, which streamed this past Friday, began to reveal some of WandaVision‘s secrets. Or, we should say, began to peel back the edge of their reality—or surreality—that landed Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) in a sitcom world. “We now have first-person intel from inside the Westview anomaly,” Director Hayward (Josh Stamberg) tells his assorted S.W.O.R.D. tactical team. (S.W.O.R.D. stands for Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division). That first-person intel comes from Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), the daughter of Captain Marvel‘s Maria Rambeau, who was sent on a mission inside Westview but ended up going missing. The “Westview anomaly” is, of course, the sitcom universe Wanda and Vision find themselves in. According to the S.W.O.R.D. personnel, that anomaly has been created entirely by Wanda herself. A new trailer from Marvel reveals some of what’s to come, and it seems likely that the center of the Westview anomaly might not be able to hold.
L-R: Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Randall Park as Jimmy Woo in Marvel Studios’ WANDAVISION. Courtesy Marvel Studios.
Monica has gone undercover in Westview as Geraldine, a seemingly happy homemaker who feels just as out of place as Wanda often does. There were plenty of bizarre moments in the first three episodes that hinted at Wanda and Vision’s growing awareness something was wrong, but it wasn’t until episode four that we were given a definitive take—Westview is all Wanda. Or is it?
There’s been so much happening on WandaVision, from the sitcom hijinx to the Avengers: Infinity War implications (that Wanda may have created Westview in order to bring Vision, or a version of Vision, back to life) that it’s going to take a second viewing, in full, to tie it all together. Should we take S.W.O.R.D.’s word for it, and assume Westview is all on Wanda? There’s reason to believe it’s credible. In one fairly stunning bit of information, Paul Bettany revealed in an interview with IMBD that there was a plan to include a credits scene in Avengers: Endgame in which Wanda retrieves Vision’s corpse from a bodybag, hinting at her WandaVision plans to come.
Check out the mid-season trailer below, which will get you plenty hyped for the series’ remaining five episodes. There are plenty of mysteries waiting to be revealed, and as this surprisingly patient, undeniably engrossing show begins to tie itself ever more tightly to the larger MCU, we’re guessing the reveals will have a major impact on Marvel’s Phase 4 and beyond.
Saturday Night Livereturned this past weekend with John Krasinski making his debut as host, nearly a year after Krasinski was supposed to have made his first appearance in Studio 8H. Krasinski’s original debut was slated for March of 2020, pegged to the release of his highly anticipated A Quiet Place Part II. Of course, none of that happened—SNL stopped production, and A Quiet Place PartII‘s release date was pushed due to the pandemic. Fast-forward nearly a year—and a completely changed world later—and there was Krasinski finally making his first appearance on a show, he revealed in his monologue, that has meant the world to him since he was a kid.
There was a lot for Krasinski and the SNL writers to take on in this first episode of 2021, and, as is the show’s DNA, they didn’t shy away from the lunacy of this past month. When SNL bowed more than a month ago, the show, like most of the rest of the country, was bidding adieu to the Trump. The vibe during that finale, especially from “Weekend Update” hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che, was a mixture of giddiness, relief, and exhaustion. Then January 2021 happened. Like March of 2020 (and, frankly, every month after), this past January lasted roughly nine years. It felt like a super-charged extenuation of 2020, from the Capitol riot to the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump, and on through President Biden’s inauguration, the relentless pandemic, and the accelerating vaccine rollout. And we thought 2020 was going to be hard for SNL to try to synthesize into comedy.
SNL wasted no time digging right into our relentlessly anxious and stressful reality in a cold open that asked “What Still Works?” Framed as a talk show hosted by Kate McKinnon, the sketch was centered on asking what in our country still works, now that we have a new president, because some things must! But McKinnon’s first guest was Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, played by Cecily Strong. Greene, you may have heard, has seemingly embraced every inane conspiracy theory that exists, and, she’s endorsed the execution of her own Democratic colleagues on social media (before she was elected). So yeah, as you can imagine, McKinnon found that Greene’s ascension into the hallowed halls of Congress is not proof that American democracy still works.
Later in the sketch, when McKinnon finds out O.J. Simpson (played by Keenan Thompson) has already been vaccinated, or that Tom Brady (played by Krasinski) is yes, still a Trump supporter, she’s about had it.
In “Pandemic Game Night,” SNL offers up what appears to be a sanity-restoring game night among friends (who claim they’re safely in a pod, hence them gathering indoors). Soon, however, the game devolves as each participant is, one by one, arrested by the F.B.I. for taking part in storming the Capitol on January 6.
“Weekend Update” handled some of the week’s breaking news, including the big GameStop story. If you’re anything like us, it took reading several “explainer” articles to make the GameStop story remotely coherent, but hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che broke it down brilliantly:
The most joyously silly skit of the night really doesn’t need much of a set-up. It simply asks you to take Pixar’s iconic film Ratatouille and tease it out into a dirty joke, and you’ve more or less got it. But SNL‘s “Ratatouille” sketch is much, much funnier than that:
All in all, it the first episode of SNL this season was funny, in a bittersweet way. Here’s hoping that future episodes will have less ludicrous material to work with.
Featured image: John Krasinski and Pete Davidson on “SNL.” Courtesy NBC.
A couple of days after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his era-defining “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, J. Edgar Hoover’s second in command at the FBI penned a memo describing him as “The most dangerous Negro in America.” As documented in Sam Pollard‘s new film MLK/FBI (On Demand and in select theaters), that 1963 memo launched the Bureau’s obsession with discrediting America’s foremost civil rights leader by tapping his phones and bugging the hotel rooms he stayed in. This “COINTELPRO” surveillance initially targeted King’s friendship with a former Communist Party member named Stanley Levison but later culminated in an anonymous letter sent to his wife, Coretta King, along with an audiotape purporting to document her husband’s sexual infidelities. Newly declassified reports inspired David J. Garrow’s book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, which in turn served as foundation for the film.
Emmy-winning Oscar nominee Pollard, a frequent Spike Lee collaborator, has edited, produced, or directed some four dozen projects, including the Sammy Davis Jr. biopic I Gotta Be Me and episodes of the civil rights series “Eyes on the Prize.” He got the idea for MLK/FBI while shooting a documentary about blues musicians Skip James and Son House. “Making Two Trains Running, set in 1964, I read a copy of Garrow’s book,” Pollard recalls. “I knew about King’s infidelities but I didn’t know the extent to which the FBI monitored them. I told my producer, ‘This could be our next film.'”
To that end, Pollard enlisted off-screen narrators including civil rights veteran Andrew Young and former FBI director James Comey. Their voiceover accompanies archival footage including rarely seen home movies of King playing with his kids along with dramatizations of FBI spies in action.
Speaking from his office in New York City, Pollard digs into the Bureau’s abuse of power, contrasts King’s Lincoln Memorial peace rally with 2021’s Washington D.C. riots and considers the potential blowback when the FBI’s King-related tapes go public in 2027.
Sam Pollard, director of ‘MLK/FBI’. Courtesy of Simbarashe Cha. An IFC Films Release.
You’re well versed in the history of civil rights in America. What most surprised you during the making of this documentary?
One of the big surprises, listening to [King biographer] Dave Garrow when we visited him with our camera crew at his house in Pennsylvania, and then doing more research afterward, was the length the FBI went to undercut Dr. King. I mean, it’s one thing to wiretap him because they thought he was connected to Communism, but when they tried to use his personal life to destroy him, going so far as to send this letter in someone else’s name saying that Dr. King was a monster and should consider doing away with himself? And on top of that putting together an audiotape of [Dr. King in] a situation with another woman, and sending that to Coretta King? It’s mind-boggling. To me, the FBI went too far in its zeal to destroy Dr. King.
Sam Pollard’s ‘MLK/FBI’. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
MLK/FBI begins shots of 250,000 people gathered in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial listening to King give his famous speech. How would you contrast that historic day in Washington D.C. with the very different January 6th riots 58 years later?
It’s very simply this: the masses of people who congregated at Lincoln Memorial in 1963 were peaceful, standing arm in arm, listening to people like Ossie Davis, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. They were there to talk about inclusion in America. “We should be heard.” “We are as American as anyone else.” The group of people in Washington last week were not there for peaceful protest. They were there to destroy. And it’s not an anomaly in American history. It’s part and parcel of what Americans can be like.
Dr. Martin Luther King in Sam Pollard’s ‘MLK/FBI’. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
Your documentary details the FBI’s abuses of power orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover but in doing so, the film also by necessity revisits Dr. King’s imperfect private life. Did you have mixed feelings about how renewed attention to these flaws might impact Dr. King’s legacy?
That’s one of the conversations I had constantly with my producer: by making this film are we doing exactly what the FBI wanted to do back in the sixties? Are we being complicit? I had to really grapple with that question. If we had done this [focused on] what I call the “gotcha” moment, I think we would have been complicit. But what we tried to do was to leave some open-ended questions that may or may be resolved when the tapes are released in 2027.
How do you feel about the National Archives’ future release of those tapes?
Charles Knox, the former FBI Agent interviewed in our film, feels there’s no good to be had from it. But my feeling is, I would like to hear what’s on those tapes. I m not saying I want to listen to stuff that’s supposed to be tawdry. I want to hear those conversations between King and Ralph Abernathy and Dorothy Cotton and Wyatt Tee Walker and Andy Young about their strategies for Birmingham, Selma, or even Chicago when they went north. That’s what I’d be curious to hear.
Dr. Martin Luther King in Sam Pollard’s ‘MLK/FBI’. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
Because the FBI presumably recorded so much on tape.
Whenever the FBI knew what town King would be visiting, it was all hands on deck. They had many agents observing the activities of King and his associates, which leads to the next question: if they were so focused on what King was doing, how come, in 1968 at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, there was no awareness about this man who was getting ready to assassinate Dr. King? We may never know the answer.
King is such an iconic figure I imagine it was challenging to find fresh footage?
We gave our archival producers a list of what we called the usual suspects: Birmingham, the Lincoln Memorial speech. But a good archival producer will then go the extra mile. Brian Becker found video of King talking to a newsman, looking so young and vital, he found video of King playing with his children, shots of James Earl Ray being captured at Heathrow Airport by Scotland Yard. That’s what a good archival producer can do. And the audio! I had never heard LBJ’s conversation with J Edgar Hoover. I mean, this stuff is priceless.
I assume the scenes of FBI agents were re-enactments?
We staged stuff of the FBI using their reel to reel tape recordings, going through files, using all the gadgets. We gathered those props and started building the soundstage three or four days before New York City shut down because of Covid. We’d originally planned to shoot for two days but the production designer told me we had to get everything the next day or he’d be gone. So we worked a 12 hour day, got everything in the can, and the next day they closed New York City down.
Next up, I understand you’re making a documentary about the Negro Baseball League and the famously under-appreciated pitcher Satchel Paige?
I hope so. If the money’s out there, sure that will be the next one. But I got one that’s going to premiere on HBO next month called Black Art in the Absence of Light. And then next year, I’ve had a film in the works for many years about the great jazz drummer Max Roach, which I hope will come out.
Based on the many documentaries you’ve made about African American talents, what would you describe the extra degrees of difficulty that come with being a Black artist, a Black musician, a Black activist?
You know the answer to the question, man. Look at the long list: Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, Billie Holiday, Sammy Davis Junior. Look at all the obstacles they had to face even with the tremendous talent they had, just because they were people of color. It’s still like that because, it’s still America, man. It’s not like an open door: “We embrace you whole-heartedly.” [Progress] takes a long time. It’s always uphill. But the thing to do is to keep on the road. Keep fighting, keep your voice out there, be as creative as possible. The challenge is to stay on the path because the struggle will always be there. Dr. King knew that.
Even after his wonderful “I have a dream” speech, the FBI called Martin Luther King. . .
“The most dangerous negro in America.” A guy who’s a non-violent activist giving a speech being “The most dangerous negro in America.” Imagine that.
Featured image: Dr. Martin Luther King in Sam Pollard’s ‘MLK/FBI’. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
We’ve got an official release date for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, otherwise known as the Snyder Cut. If you thought this GameStop story revealed the potential power of a group of committed people collaborating online to make something big happen, the upcoming HBO Max release of Snyder’s revamping of Justice League is also emblematic of online people power.
HBO Max has revealed that the new and improved Justice League will stream on March 18. We had a sneaking suspicion that the film might drop a bit earlier than we’d originally suspected, and sure enough, here we are. Snyder’s vision for Justice League will finally be unveiled, more than four years after he had to leave the production of the original film due to a family emergency and hand the reigns over to Joss Whedon. After a fervent online community agitated for a #SnyderCut, HBO Max stepped into the breach and Snyder was able to do some re-shooting, new VFX work, new ADR work, and generally create the movie he’d intended to make all along.
Here’s the official synopsis from HBO Max:
In ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.
Here are the three new posters:
Teaser Art for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Courtesy Warner Bros./HBO Max.Teaser Art for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Courtesy Warner Bros./HBO Max.Teaser Art for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Courtesy Warner Bros./HBO Max.
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The legendary Cicely Tyson, a history-making actress, humanitarian, and style icon beloved within the entertainment industry and beyond, passed away on Thursday at 96. Tyson died just two days after her memoir, “Just as I Am,” was published. She’d recently given interviews about the book, including this sit-down with Gayle King:
Tyson’s career, which included many critically lauded performances, was trail-breaking in every sense of the word, taking on a long list of compelling, potent roles while refusing to play the types of demeaning characters usually given to Black actresses at the time. Her long, singular career spanned more than six decades in which she was breaking barriers and breaking down stereotypes throughout. She performed opposite George C. Scott in the CBS drama East Side/West Side, becoming the first Black actress to have a recurring role on a network series. Later, her incredible performance in the 1974 CBS telefilm The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, in which she plays a woman who ages from 23 to 110, from before the Civil War to the Civil Rights era, made her the first Black actress to win the lead actress Emmy Award. Many more awards and nominations were to follow. Some of her great television performances include her work in Roots, King, Sweet Justice, The Marva Collins Story, and A Lesson Before Dying. She would go on to earn 17 Emmy nominations in total, including five for her work as Ophelia in ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder, the mother to Viola Davis‘s Annalise. She was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2020.
On the big screen, Tyson earned an Academy Award nomination for her role in Sounder and received an Honorary Oscar at the Motion Picture Academy’s Governors Awards in 2019 for her lifetime of great work on the silver screen. Roles in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Fried Green Tomatoes, Because of Winn-Dixie, Hoodlum, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and, most recently, in Tyler Perry’s 2018’s film A Fall From Grace are just some of the highlights.
Tyson was a legend on Broadway, too, from her first appearance as Barbara Allen in “Dark of the Moon” to her return, 30-years later, as Mother Carrie Watts in Horton Foote’s “The Trip to the Bountiful,” which earned her what’s known as the “triple crown” of theater awards: the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards for Best Actress. She was last on Broadway in 2015, co-starring with James Earl Jones in The Gin Game.
Tyson was not only a trailblazer and phenomenally talented performer, but she was also an advocate and humanitarian. She was the leading light of the Cicely L. Tyson Community School of the Performing and Fine Arts, which launched in 1996. Located in East Orange, New Jersey, the institution serves 1,200 students, from kindergarten through 12th grade. In 2016, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Throughout it all, Cicely Tyson was an advocate for Black actors and actresses coming up behind her. Her passing was felt, far and wide, by the countless people whose lives she touched, from those that she knew and helped to those that saw her on screen.
Here is just a brief snapshot of the outpouring of love for the late, truly great, Cicely Tyson:
In her extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson was one of the rare award-winning actors whose work on the screen was surpassed only by what she was able to accomplish off of it. She had a heart unlike any other—and for 96 years, she left a mark on the world that few will ever match. pic.twitter.com/JRsL3zlKtP
What struck me every time I spent time with Cicely Tyson was not necessarily her star power—though that was evident enough—it was her humanity. Just by walking into a room, she had this way of elevating everyone around her. pic.twitter.com/o6VAV63wqd
I’m devastated. My heart is just broken. I loved you so much!! You were everything to me! You made me feel loved and seen and valued in a world where there is still a cloak of invisibility for us dark chocolate girls. You gave me permission to dream… https://t.co/7V7AFZtFLapic.twitter.com/l2TLfM4weX
She was an extraordinary person. And this is an extraordinary loss. She had so much to teach. And I still have so much to learn. I am grateful for every moment. Her power and grace will be with us forever. #cicelytysonhttps://t.co/RNYkGiooPDpic.twitter.com/b4wMKK1FVj
I was sitting at the table working when I got this overwhelming feeling to watch Miss Jane Pittman. I hadn’t seen the movie in years. I didn’t even understand the feeling to turn it on, but I did anyway. Not 12 minutes into the movie my phone rang… cont: https://t.co/Cnwrw6chXgpic.twitter.com/KwogNifCV8
This one cuts deep. @IAmCicelyTyson was my first screen Mom.. Elegance, warmth, beauty, wisdom, style and abundant grace. She was as regal as they come. An artist of the highest order, I will love her forever… ♥️ RIP pic.twitter.com/69Awj7qI8o
Greatness incarnate. I’m so grateful I got to see her perform live… Thank you dear Cicely for shining so bright and full every day for us all. #LegendsNeverDiehttps://t.co/ZdQoTGo7vL
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 06: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been shot in black and white. Color version is not available.) Cicely Tyson attends the 47th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Denzel Washington at Dolby Theatre on June 06, 2019 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)
If you ever wondered what a trailer for a Kristen Wiig comedy would look like if it were modeled on Netflix’s juggernaut fantasy/sci-fi series Stranger Things, today is your lucky day. Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar‘s new trailer opens with an extremely credible facsimile of Stranger Thing‘s intro, down to the typeface used in the titles and a shot of a kid pedaling on a bicycle. The link between director Josh Greenbaum’s film (written by Wiig and her co-star Annie Mumolo) and Stranger Things more or less evaporates thereafter, but it’s a cheeky way to kick things off.
Wiig and Mumolo know a thing or two about writing hilarious scripts—they’re the duo behind Bridesmaids, after all. Barb & Star is centered on the titular friends (Mumolo’s Barb, Wiig’s Star) taking their first-ever trip outside the Midwest. Their fun-in-the-sun idyll promises to be full of hijinx, romance, and further proof these two are best friends for life. That’s when a villain’s “evil plot” turns their vacation into something else entirely.
Joining Wiig and Mumolo are Jamie Dornan, Damon Wayans Jr., Wendi McLendon-Covey, Rose Abdoo, Vanessa Bayer, Kwame Patterson, and Phyllis Smith.
Barb & Star Go To Visa Del Mar will be released anywhere you can rent movies on February 12. Check out the trailer below:
Here’s the synopsis from Lionsgate:
Take a trip and break out of your shell with Barb and Star. From the gals who brought you Bridesmaids (co-stars and co-writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo) comes BARB & STAR GO TO VISTA DEL MAR. Lifelong friends Barb and Star embark on the adventure of a lifetime when they decide to leave their small Midwestern town for the first time…ever. Romance, friendship and a villain’s evil plot…Hold onto your culottes, BARB & STAR debuts in your home on February 12th!
Featured image: Annie Mumolo as Barb and Kristen Wig as Star in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. Photo Credit: Cate Cameron
In the first installment of our series Future Critics, we’d like to introduce you to Benji Cherukuri. Benji’s an avid movie fan, musician, and performer himself. You can check out Benji’s videos—which he edits—on his YouTube channel. Today, however, Benji becomes our first Future Critic.
Benji took some time out from his busy schedule, which includes doing homework for his sixth-grade classes, playing “Fortnite” and “Among Us” with his friends, and teaching his golden retriever puppy Ruthie new tricks, to tell us why he loves the work of composers Nicholas Britell and Hans Zimmer.
Now, we like to think of ourselves as fairly well versed in filmmaking craft. Heck, that’s the bread and butter of what The Credits does. And, we’ve actually interviewed both Nicholas Britell (twice!) and Hans Zimmer before. Yet we’d be lying if we said we approached those interviews with the same energy, the same level of infectious joy (and believe us, we love this stuff) as Benji does.
Let’s start with Benji’s take on Britell’s work, specifically the theme song he created for HBO’s smash hit series Succession. Succession, created by Jesse Armstrong, follows the Roy family, a grotesquely wealthy clan that controls the biggest media and entertainment company on the planet. The Roys are, to put it mildly, terrible people. Britell’s theme song became instantly iconic, brilliantly capturing the discord running through a family that, in the best of times, are an amoral nest of vipers.
First, here’s the theme song:
And here’s Benji on what makes Britell’s work pop:
Now we move on to Hans Zimmer, a living legend, and his work on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Dunkirk. For the former, Zimmer collaborated with composer James Newton Howard but was himself tasked with creating the Joker’s theme. So memorably played by the late Heath Ledger, his Joker remains one of cinema’s greatest villains, and Zimmer created a musical theme that was, he believed, as charismatically repellent as the character.
For Dunkirk, Zimmer utilized both a pocket watch (given to him by Nolan) and an auditory illusion caused by Shepard tones, named after cognitive scientist Roger Shepard, that mimicked—and enhanced—the film’s relentless race-against-time narrative as it captured the life or death struggle of Allied soldiers surrounded by the German Army in World War II.
Here’s The Dark Knight Orchestra Suite by Hans Zimmer:
Here’s the Dunkirk trailer, which highlights both the pocket watch and the Shepard Tones:
And here Benji discusses Hans Zimmer’s work on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Dunkirk.
Benji’s got a future in this business if he wants one.
Last week we learned about a fresh Game of Thrones prequel based on George R. R. Martin’s novellas, “Tales of Dunk and Egg.” Now, The Hollywood Reporterreveals that an animated Game of Thrones drama is under consideration at HBO Max. THR reports that the animated idea is part of a larger strategy to expand Martin’s fantasy world of dragons and direwolves at HBO.
Currently, HBO has the House Targaryen-centered House of the Dragon prequel already set, starring Olivia Cooke, Matt Smith, and Emma D’Arcy. That series is scheduled to begin production this spring. Then there’s the aforementioned news about turning Martin’s novellas about the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg) into a series. Unlike House of the Dragon, Tales of Dunk and Egg is not yet set, but there’s talk it could end up on HBO Max. Martin readers have long been clamoring for this particular story to find its way on screen.
THR reports that the Game of Thrones expansion plans were in the works well before Disney’s big reveal during their investor’s day in December that they had almost a dozen new Star Wars projects and another dozen or so Marvel TV series in the works for Disney+. Now that HBO has HBO Max, it makes sense to build out the rich, much-beloved fantasy universe that Martin created. With a ton of choices, the overwhelmed viewer will often choose the streaming service that has a library packed with titles they’re pretty sure they’ll love. Considering the legion of Game of Thrones fans, an animated spinoff and two prequel series might just be the beginning.
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The first image of Kristen Stewart as a young Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer is a visual reminder that this is one of the more intriguing films slated for 2021. Stewart and Larraín have teamed up to tell a story about a very specific time period in Princess Diana’s life—the weekend when she decided she was going to leave Prince Charles.
Stewart certainly looks the part. And as an actress, she’s already proven, time and again, that lots of people underestimated her when they thought she’d be known, in perpetuity, as Bella from the Twilight franchise. In film after film, Stewart has proven what a formidable talent she is. She’s also had impeccable taste on which directors she’s worked with, from Olivier Assayas to Kelly Reichardt. Larraín is the latest auteur Stewart’s teamed up with, and their collaboration, and the material, make Spencer a very intriguing addition to the year’s slate.
Spencer was written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and takes place over a single Christmas Holiday when Diana makes the fateful decision to end her marriage to Charles. Stewart joins a robust list of performers who have played the iconic Diana, most recently Emma Corrin in The Crown and, taking over for her in the final two seasons, Elizabeth Debicki. Stewart, however, is the first American to take on the role. She is also arguably the performer who could possibly relate most of all to the crushing scrutiny Diana faced as a young woman, considering the near-hysteria over the mega-popular Twilight and its’ leading lady.
Stweart is joined by Timothy Spall (The King’s Speech), Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), and Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Fallout), although we’re not yet sure what their roles will be. Here’s what Stewart had to say in an official statement:
“Spencer is a dive inside an emotional imagining of who Diana was at a pivotal turning point in her life. It is a physical assertion of the sum of her parts, which starts with her given name: Spencer. It is a harrowing effort for her to return to herself, as Diana strives to hold onto what the name Spencer means to her.”
Here’s the official synopsis. Spencer is due for a release sometime in the fall of 2021.
“December, 1991: The Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage has long since grown cold. Though rumours of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities at Sandringham Estate. There’s eating and drinking, shooting and hunting. Diana knows the game. This year, things will be a whole lot different.”
Featured image: Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana in Spencer. Courtesy Neon.
“I think Lupin is the ideal character for an actor,” Omar Sy says in this new video from Netflix, titled “The Multiple Faces of Assane Diop.” Sy’s character, Assane Diop, is a gentleman thief. Inspired by the adventures of the titular Arsène Lupin, a fictional gentleman thief and master of disguise created by the French writer Maurice Leblanc in 1905, the new Netflix series boasts a stellar cast and crew. It just might be your next binge. But don’t take our word for it—let the charming, talented Sy explain why Lupin is a series worth your time, and why it’s about a lot more than getting away with the perfect crime.
For an actor of Sy’s skills (if you haven’t seen him in the magnificent The Intouchables, we highly recommend you watch that, soon) playing a thief who’s a master of disguises has obvious appeal. It offers you the ability to take on multiple roles in a single series, and, let’s be honest, it allows you to live out the fantasy of being a gentleman thief, elegant, sophisticated, and several steps ahead of the law. As Sy explains, however, the Lupin made famous by Leblanc’s stories utilized costumes and makeup to change his appearance. In Lupin, Sy explains that all it takes is for his Assane Diop to disappear is for him to inject himself into a social stratum where he wouldn’t normally “belong.”
Series creator and screenwriter George Kay explains that he wanted to try to find disguises that Sy’s character could wear that would allow him to hide in plain sight, “based on our societal prejudices.” So, for example, if you’re going to rob the Louvre, “maybe you should do it from a job that people may not be paying as much attention to.” Say, as a janitor.
As you can see, there’s a lot more going on in Lupin than your typical classy cat burglar tale. This theme of invisibility is one of the many intriguing elements of the series. With a performer of Sy’s considerable charisma, Lupin promises to do more than just show us how his character pulls off a great heist.
Lupin is streaming on Netflix now. Check out the video below:
Here’s the synopsis:
As a teenager, Assane Diop’s life was turned upside down when his father died after being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. 25 years later, Assane will use “Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Burglar” as his inspiration to avenge his father.
If you’ve been watching WandaVision, you’ve seen hints that the bizarre sitcom world that Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) have been living in is fracturing. The first three episodes of showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman’s series have beautifully walked the line between comedy and drama. Wanda and Vision are somehow living inside a world of evolving period sitcoms, with all the goofy hijinx that entails (wacky neighbors, dreadful dinner parties, etcetera), while teasing in the tension that they both know something’s not quite right. Now, in this Friday’s fourth episode, it seems their sitcom world and the actual universe they belong to (you know, the one where Thanos killed Vision in Avengers: Infinity War) is about to collide.
Paul Bettany was speaking with the Lights Camera Barstoolpodcast, and while he didn’t make the cardinal sin of revealing any spoilers, he did say that episode 4 is going to be a gamechanger. Or, to use Bettany’s more precise phrasing, “people’s minds are going to explode.”
“So many things get leaked, but there’s this thing that has been completely under wraps that happens and I work with this actor that I’ve always wanted to work with and we have fireworks together, the scenes are great and I think people are going to be really excited. I’ve always wanted to work with this guy and the scenes are pretty intense.”
Who might this actor be, and how might he tie into the larger MCU? Your guess is as good as ours. Considering The Mandalorian team was able to keep the fact that (spoiler alert!) Luke Skywalker was going to make an appearance in the season two finale a secret, who knows who the WandaVision creative team have up their sleeves. Has he worked within the MCU before, but just not with Bettany? Or is this person completely new to Marvel?
Bettany also promised that the tension that’s been building up in WandaVision is about to spill over into outright conflict:
“You can expect those two worlds [of the sitcom and the outside world] to… to have more conflict. I don’t want to give away too much about the future episodes, but I will tell you this, there were more special effects requirements for our TV show than there were for Endgame.”
It sounds like this Friday’s WandaVision is going to be the episode where all hell breaks loose. We can’t wait.
In an Instagram post marking Thor: Love and Thunder‘s start of filming, star Chris Hemsworth took the opportunity to pay tribute to the history of First Nations people in Australia, where Hemsworth and the Love and Thunder cast and crew are getting to work.
The production was welcomed by a performance of “Welcome to the Country” by Gamay dancers of the Bidgiagal and Gadigal Nation, as well as Maori dancers from Te Aranganui. Here’s what Hemsworth wrote in his post: “Indigenous Australians may be just as proud of this country, but many see January 26th as a date signifying the beginning of dispossession, disease epidemics, frontier violence, destruction of culture, exploitation, abuse, separation of families and subjection to policies of extreme social control. Let’s begin the healing and stand together in unity and support with our First Nations people with solidarity and compassion. Let’s find a date where all Australians can celebrate this beautiful country together.”
Hemsworth is, of course, Australian, and co-writer/director Taika Waititi hails from New Zealand and is of partly Maori descent. Check out the Instagram post below:
Thor: Love and Thunder follows Waititi’s gangbuster’s 2017 hit Thor: Ragnarok, a kaleidoscopic cosmic romp that marked his entrance to the MCU in singular style. Love and Thunder comes from a script Waititi wrote with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (Someone Great) and will feature the return of Natalie Portman as Jane—only now she’ll be wielding Mjolnir as a female Thor, based on Jason Aaron’s run on “The Mighty Thor” comics. Tessa Thompson returns as Valkyrie, and another big-name, Christian Bale, makes his first appearance in a Marvel movie (you might recall he played a certain Caped Crusader in a DC Films trilogy) as Gorr the God Butcher, the film’s big bad.
Thor: Love and Thunder is due in theaters on May 6, 2022.
Raya and the Last Dragon is ready to take flight. Well, almost ready. The upcoming Walt Disney Animation Studios film, from directors Don Hall (Moana) and Carlos López Estrada (Blindspotting) has released a new trailer ahead of its theatrical and Disney+ Premiere Access release on March 5. The epic action-adventure story is set in the mystical world of Kumandra, where at one point in time, dragons and humans coexisted peacefully. In fact, their bond was so close that the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity from an evil force some 500 years ago. That force is back. And not only that, but Kuamanda is a place where nobody seems to get along very well.
The film is set 500 years after those events. Your heroine is the titular Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), and she’ll need to assemble a crack team in order to face down the threat. As for that last dragon in the title, her name is Sisua, and she’s voiced by none other than Awkwafina. Raya’s crew will need to find Sisua if they’re going to prove successful, and one of the members, an extremely clever baby, seems capable all her own.
If you wanted to mask up and catch the film in theaters, you’ll be able to. If you’d rather watch at home, it’ll be available on Disney+’s Premiere Access program to rent for $29.99. Coming from the same studio that brought you Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon has a similarly lush look. It also boasts a terrific voice cast. Joining Tran and Awkwafina are Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae-Kim, Sandra Oh, Benedict Wong, Izaac Wang, Thalia Tran, Alan Tudyk, Lucille Soong, Patti Harrison, and Ross Butler.
Behold the new Raya and the Last Dragon trailer below.
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