Growing up in Baltimore as a young Black boy, one of my fondest memories of my beloved city is Lexington Market. I recall as a young boy walking with my mom past the famous indoor market and down West Lexington Street and seeing this beautiful mural of local black artists. One of the artists included in this mural was the legendary Billie Holiday. I was in awe of her beauty. As I got older, I was introduced to her music, and then to Sidney J. Furie’s biopic Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross as Billie. The film not only introduced me more fully to Billie Holiday’s story, but it showcased her childhood in Baltimore. I was hooked. This brings to me Lee Daniels‘ (The Butler and Precious) upcoming film The United Stated vs. BillieHoliday—needless to say, when I learned about its existence, I was ecstatic.
Grammy Award Nominee Andra Day will play Holiday, a tall order for any young performer, even one as gifted as Day. Considering the last performer to take on Holiday was Audra McDonald, who gave a spellbinding, heartbreaking performance on Broadway in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” (earning McDonald her sixth Tony Award), the bar is set high. The Broadway production was eventually filmed at the Cafe Brasil in New Orleans and broadcast on HBO (McDonald earned an Emmy nomination for this, of course). Yet if anyone can reach, or even clear that bar, it’s the hugely talented Day, whose debut album “Cheers to the Fall” was nominated for Best R&B album in 2015. The album’s main single, “Rise Up,” was also nominated for a Grammy, for Best R&B Performance.
Daniels’ film will take a different approach than both the play and Lady Sings the Blues. Rather than following Holiday’s career as a jazz singer, The United States vs. Billie Holiday follow Lady Day (as she was affectionately known) in the early days of her career, and will be centered on the Federal Department of Narcotics obsession with her. The Department, which was led by Harry Anslinger (played here by Garrett Hedlund), targeted Holiday for years. Anslinger hired Jimmy Fletcher (to be played by Moonlight‘sTrevante Rhodes) to track her and set her up in a sting operation after she was admitted to a hospital for issues related to her liver and heart, issues that would ultimately lead to her death. Fletcher’s alliances, however, became wobbly in the presence of the magnetic Holiday. The film will also highlight the Federal Department of Narcotics’ quest to imprison Holiday in retribution for her political songs like “Strange Fruit” and her dedication to the Civil Rights movement.
Daniels directs from a script produced by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Suzan-Lori Parks, based on the book “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” by Johann Hari. This story hits close to home for Daniels on several levels—he has been open about his personal struggles with drug abuse.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday will be released by Paramount Pictures in early 2021. Joining Andra Day and Rhodes are Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Miss Lawrence, Nathasha Lyonne, Rob Morgan, Evan Ross, and Dana Gourrier.
Featured image: Andra Day stars in THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY from Paramount Pictures. Photo Credit: Takashi Seida.
HBO Max has given us all something to savor this Thanksgiving that’s not filled with tryptophan (dissing on turkey here) and much, much better for the mind—Kamilah Forbes’ adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between The World and Me” will be free to stream beginning on November 25 through November 20.
This special was originally adapted and staged at the Apollo Theater in 2018 by Forbes (the theater’s executive producer), who adapted the stage performance for the HBO Max special. The list of luminaries involved is huge, including Coates himself, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Jharrel Jerome, Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, Courtney B. Vance, and Oprah Winfrey.
Here’s what folks have been saying about Forbes’ adaptation of Coates’ monumental book, both those involved with the project, critics, and more:
Wow! Last night I watched “Between the World and Me,” on @HBO. It’s the Filmed version of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir shot during the covid pandemic. I didn’t know what to expect. Well, it rocked me. it’s profound, important, a must-see https://t.co/P5t6VdBFwS#BetweenTheWorldAndMe
“Between the World and Me” turns Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book into a powerful HBO special, connecting past and present as he counsels his son about living “with the all of” America https://t.co/67hdQv0NNJ
Following its debut this weekend on HBO Max, the HBO special event BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, a gripping adaption of the New York Times #1 bestselling book by Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Apollo stage performance of the same name, will be available to stream for free on HBOMax.com this Thanksgiving weekend, beginning November 25 through November 30.
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME will also be available to stream on HBO.com, on Free On Demand via participating partners, and will re-air on the HBO linear channel as part of the Thanksgiving free preview weekend.
HBO is proud to offer families the opportunity to stream this breathtaking, heartbreaking, and layered film for free. Coates’ book, which is now recognized as a classic of the Black Lives Matter era, has been reimagined during a global pandemic against the backdrop of the killing of Breonna Taylor and global protests for Black lives. BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME is an urgent story of hope and resilience, exploring Coates’ vision of a race built beneath white supremacy, and a people built despite it.
Additionally, HBO’s Between The World And Me Podcast, co-produced by Spoke Media and Domino Sound, will be available on all major podcast platforms. Across four weekly episodes, the podcast weaves together in-depth discussions with thought leaders, educators and creatives to extend the conversation, unpack the film, and relive key moments from the landmark work. Episode 1 (“The Dream”) is available now, with future episodes “The Mecca,” “The Future,” and “The World” debuting on subsequent Mondays.
In addition to BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, viewers can sample the most popular series from the HBO Max library on the HBOMax.com/watch-free page with no subscription needed. The page currently features more than two dozen episodes and programs available to stream for free including “A West Wing Special: When We All Vote” and series premiere episodes of “Lovecraft Country,” “The Undoing” and “The Flight Attendant.”
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME is directed by Kamilah Forbes who also serves as executive producer; executive produced by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Susan Kelechi Watson and Roger Ross Williams. Williams’ production company ONE STORY UP produces.
Featured image: “Between The World And Me” key art. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
Writer/producer Ron Leshem has gained international recognition as the creator of the Israeli TV series Euphoria and executive producer of its U.S. adaptation. Along with his longtime collaborator Amit Cohen, Leshem is also known for creating the series The Gordin Cell, Allegiance, and No Man’s Land. But for a decade, the Israeli-born duo have been wanting to produce a story about one of the most important moments in their homeland’s history — the Yom Kippur War.
Valley of Tears is an epic 10-part miniseries recreating the 1973 conflict which saw Israel fighting for its existence against Egypt and Syria. A surprise attack launched on the holiest day in the Israeli calendar, it caught the country totally by surprise. But the Israeli army rallied and in less than three weeks, it mounted a successful offensive that forced a cease fire. Already a highly successful Israeli television drama, Valley of Tears recently debuted on HBO Max in the United States.
Photograph by VERED ADIR – HBO MAX
“Our main dream was to go back and create this show which is not only about a war that changed the Middle East — it changed the Israeli society,” says Leshem during a Zoom interview. “For us, this show is kind of a national reckoning for the Israeli society. And it’s a story that has never been told. The U.S. culture is constantly working on its Vietnam War. But we in Israel never had a single series dealing with our biggest trauma.”
Ron Leshem
Realizing the monumental task they were undertaking, Leshem and Cohen did not take the responsibility lightly. Leshem grew up watching American war films and admits that The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Deer Hunter and Saving Private Ryan helped inspire him to become a writer. He knew in some way Valley of Tears could take a page from these classics. But the creative team also understood that the series would have to stand out on its own.
“We knew we wanted to tell a story about the Israeli society and its weaknesses. And we knew we wanted it to be really intense, almost minute by minute of the first four days of the attack,” continues Leshem. “But we also wanted to make sure that what we are telling would have conflicts and dilemmas that you haven’t seen anywhere else. We’d have a unique voice.”
Photograph by VERED ADIR – HBO MAX
To make this happen, Leshem and Cohen gathered a writing team that mixed TV scriptors such as Daniel Amsel, Izhar Harlev, and Gal Zaid with top Israeli authors such as Amir Gutfreund and Yael Hedaya. Yaron Ziberman was tapped as director. Together they built a tale that wove the chaos and upheaval of the invasion with a stream of characters that puts a face to the emotional turmoil of war. Storylines include a skeleton squad of soldiers and intel analysts fighting for their lives at a remote outpost on Mount Hermon and a tank squad facing a crisis of command as they find themselves vastly outnumbered by an approaching enemy squadron. In the midst of this is an unlikely trio of travelers that include a father looking for his soldier son, a female officer trying to find information about her boyfriend and a wayward soldier left behind after his platoon was deployed, driving through the war-torn countryside in the father’s car. Each character is based on either personal experience or that of family and friends. For example, Leshem and Cohen first met while serving in the military as members of Unit 8200, the Israeli Intelligence Corps.
“It’s a tapping unit. And strangely enough, this is where we learned how to write drama,” says Leshem. “Because basically, if I’m tapping your phone line, I know you even more than anyone else in your life. I hear how you talk to different individuals, but I also hear how they’re talking about you behind your back. So I know everything about you.”
Leshem and Cohen drew from this experience to craft the character of Avinoam Shapira (Shahar Tavoch), a jittery, young intelligence officer who stumbles on the impending attack but can’t get his superiors to believe him. One of the more poignant moments in Valley of Tears occurs when Shapira encounters a Syrian soldier. Not a fighter, Shapira instead converses with the wounded enemy, finding common ground. But as they tentatively discover each other’s humanity, the Syrian is killed by one of Shapira’s fellow soldiers.
Shahar Tavoch. Photograph by VERED ADIR – HBO MAX
When the episode initially aired in Israel, the producers were accused of fabricating the scene as an anti-war statement.
“No way it happened. You liberals were trying to brainwash us about how cruel we are,” says Leshem, remembering the tone of the comments. “A moment later, there were so many people saying, ‘Oh, that’s the story of my father. That’s the story of my grandfather or that’s my story.’ There were so many stories about a guy who met a Syrian soldier or killed him. Finally, we decided to answer them and say, “Okay, here’s the guy we used. This is the real story that inspired us.’”
Leshem is thrilled that Valley of Tears is evoking such an impassioned response from its Israeli audience. It is particularly satisfying considering the effort it took to get it made. When he and Cohen conceived the miniseries those many years ago, they realized it would be a struggle. He jokes that the budget on a typical Israeli TV series is comparable to what an American series spends on craft services. The technical aspects alone, such as acquiring the military equipment, specifically the tanks, would be expensive and challenging. Upping the degree of difficulty was Leshem’s desire to film in the locations where the war was actually fought. Conflicts with the neighboring countries are still taking place.
Photograph by VERED ADIR – HBO MAX
In the meantime, the team focused on creating other less daunting, more cost-effective programs. As they did, the Israeli television industry evolved and became more global. Leshem found himself working on productions around the world. Israeli producers were creating series with broad international appeal. As an example, Leshem sites No Man’s Land, his series that just debuted on Hulu. He and Cohen assembled a creative team from ten countries. Leshem wondered if this could be the key to getting Valley of Tears produced.
At one point, talks began with an American studio. The executives loved the script and were ready to greenlight the series. But they wanted an English-speaking cast. This upset the Israeli producing community. Leshem’s homeland colleagues were insistent that this story be told in Hebrew, not English. And they were ready to put their money where their mouths were. Coupling funds raised in Israel with an international deal from HBO Max, Valley of Tears was able to go into production with a price tag of $1 million per episode.
It was worth the effort. Leshem states that Valley of Tears became the highest rated drama in the history of Israeli public television. It’s VOD debut drew over one million viewers in its first four days, unheard of for a country whose population is just under nine million. The series has spawned an aftershow, podcasts and Facebook pages that offer viewers the opportunity to share their stories and openly discuss the impact of the Yom Kippur War on their lives.
“The most important thing for us is that Valley of Tears became more than just a drama,” says Leshem. “We never told the story of this war before and now you have tens of thousands of people writing on Facebook groups about the show. You see there are 12 year olds,15 year olds who are saying, ‘I’ve seen my grandfather and grandmother crying for the first time. They are saying things I’ve never heard.’ Everyone is super involved.”
In 1971, a Boeing 727 flying out of Portland, Oregon was hijacked by a single middle-aged man, operating under the name Dan Cooper. Clad in black, wearing dark sunglasses, and using a bomb in a briefcase as leverage, Cooper demanded four parachutes but only $200,000, and he let the flight’s passengers go in Seattle, where the cash and parachutes were brought aboard. After demanding the pilots fly to Mexico City, he opened the aircraft’s back door over the woods in Washington State, and parachuted out. The whole event remains the U.S.’s only unsolved act of air piracy.
The crew of the hijacked plane, (from left) Second Officer Harold ‘Andy’ Anderson, Co-Pilot William Rataczak, Pilot William Scott, Stewardesses Tina Mucklow, Florence Schaffner and Alice Hancock. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
In The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, which premieres on November 25th on HBO, the British filmmaker John Dower passes over further investigation, instead aiming a psychological lens onto four credible suspects and their friends and family. Having never been identified, Cooper’s jump became the stuff of legend, and over the past half-century there have been abundant claims on his identity. Integrated with a reenactment of the event and interviews with people who were on the flight, Dower speaks with the friends and family of four different believable candidates, none of whom are currently alive but whose survivors each fervently swear their man to be the real Cooper.
“I love making documentaries in the States, because your stories do just feel bigger and weirder, and have more scale,” says Dower, whose body of work also includes films on Scientology and the NY Cosmos. When the director first learned about Cooper, he likened the story to something you’d hear about from a guy in a pub, but when he met “all these people who genuinely believe they know who he is, I sort of fell in love with them,” he says. “We had this mantra for making the film, a great quote from Steven Spielberg when he’s making Close Encounters of the Third Kind — he said ‘I don’t necessarily believe in UFOs, but I believe in the people who believe in them.”
Jo Weber, who believes her deceased husband is DB Cooper. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
The Mystery of D.B. Cooper is built on those believers. Florida man Ed Weber told his wife, Jo, that he was Cooper as she attended him on his deathbed. Barbara Dayton, we learn from his friends, was Washington State’s first man to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Richard Floyd McCoy was convicted of a copycat hijacking, and according to Dower, his wife will never speak to anyone about her late husband, but his old Army buddy is more obliging. In 1971, Marla Cooper’s uncle L.D. came home bleeding and triumphant that the family money problems were solved. The film leaves you not just wanting to believe all of them, but marveling at the commitment of the suspects’ survivors to their version of the truth.
These fervent believers are a fascinating curiosity, but Dower grounds the documentary’s emotional center in interviews with co-pilot William Rataczak, flight engineer Harold Anderson, and Tina Mucklow, the flight attendant who was the last person standing in the cabin with Cooper before he parachuted out (when she couldn’t get the door open mid-flight, the hijacker sent her into the cockpit and opened it himself). The filmmaker theorizes that Cooper’s story achieved cult status not just because he was never seen again, but because the hijacker was calm and polite in his demands. Subsequently, his act has been framed as a victimless crime, but “I’m not sure that’s entirely true,” says Dower. “And that’s why there’s a moment in the film where the air crew get quite emotional. At the end of the day, they were in a massive piece of metal, flying at great speed, with the back door open and guy saying I’ve got a bomb in my briefcase. That has had an effect on them.”
Recovered money from DB Cooper’s ransom. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
And they’ll likely never see closure — the case has gone cold and nobody in The Mystery of D.B. Cooper, including FBI agents and biographers of the event, seems to really expect it to be solved. “The FBI didn’t manage it in 50 years, so why is some bloke from South London going to manage it?” jokes Dower of his own contribution. There are thousands of tips listed in FBI files, the vast majority of which are of far less credibility than the four men we meet in the film. As their family and friends draw you in thanks to their own ardent belief, you want all of them to somehow be right. Dower started shooting back in 2016, and at first, “I was like shit, this is extraordinary, what a bonkers story.” But as time went on, he found himself waking up in the middle of the night, absolutely convinced the real hijacker was any one of the four men so passionately defended by his idiosyncratic interview subjects. “During the making of the film, I became one of them,” he says. “You can’t help yourself.”
For more on HBO and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Featured image: A hijacked Northwest Airlines jetliner 727 sits on a runway for refueling at Tacoma International Airport, Nov. 25, 1971, Seattle, Wash. (AP Photo)
Well, the cast for this film is absolutely bonkers. Deadpool 2 and Atomic Blonde director David Leitch’s Bullet Train has just called Lady Gaga onboard. Leitch, an verified master of the action sequence, has assembled an incredible cast for this film. The Oscar-winner and multi-talented superstar joins Brad Pitt, Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Joey King, Andrew Koji, Masi Oka, and two-time Oscar-nominee and one of the best character actors working, Michael Shannon.
Leitch’s film was written by Zak Olkewicz and is based on Kôtarô Isaka’s novel “Maria Beetle.” As you could probably guess from the title, the story’s setting is a bullet train, and the premise finds four assassins onboard the speedy locomotive in Tokyo, each with their own designs. Colliderbroke the news about Gaga’s involvement. It’s unclear at this point exactly who she’s playing, but Collider‘s source says she’s in a supporting role rather than a lead.
The last time we saw Gaga on the big screen, she was absolutely crushing it in Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born(doesn’t 2018 feel like a million years ago?). She won her Oscar for Best Original Song from that film and was also nominated for Best Actress. Gaga’s upcoming film slate is very intriguing. Along with Leitch’s sure-to-be pulse-pounding thriller, she’s got Ridley Scott’s Gucci, where she’s set to play Patrizia Reggiani, the ex-wife of Maurizio Gucci, who plotted to kill her husband—the grandson of renowned fashion designer Guccio Gucci. Her co-stars in that little picture are Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Adam Driver, Jared Leto, and Jack Huston. So, yeah, that seems like a big one.
We’ll let you know more when we know more.
Featured image: NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 06: Lady Gaga attends The 2019 Met Gala Celebrating Camp: Notes on Fashion at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
There’s a new Oscar-hopeful on the docket. Writer/director Sam Levinson’s Malcolm & Marie, starring two of the most sought-after stars working right now, Zendaya and John David Washington, will be released on Netflix on February 5, 2021. Levinson, Zendaya, Washington, and their crew teamed up to shoot Malcolm & Marie while in quarantine earlier this year. With this release date, the drama is now eligible for the upcoming Academy Awards. It now seems possible that Netflix has a bounty of potential Oscar-nominated films on their hands; David Fincher’s upcoming Mank, George C. Wolfe’s upcoming Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods.
The person to get Malcolm & Marie going in the first place was Zendaya. She prompted Levinson, creator of HBO’s Euphoria in which she starred, to write a film that could be made during the pandemic. The result, a black-and-white drama about a budding filmmaker (Washington) and his girlfriend (Zendaya) on what should be a romantic, incredible night (things go south) was eventually sold to Netflix during an auction at the Toronto Film Festival Market for a whopping $30 million.
Now that Netflix has made the release date official, folks are enthused. Zendaya is one of them:
Sam Levinson teams up with Zendaya and John David Washington for an achingly romantic drama in which a filmmaker (Washington) and his girlfriend (Zendaya) return home 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 strength of their love. Working with cinematographer Marcell Rev, Levinson creates a film of rare originality; an ode to the great Hollywood romances as well as a heartfelt expression of faith in the medium’s future.
Zendaya is recently coming off becoming the youngest person ever to win an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama at the 2020 Emmys for her Euphoria season 1 performance. Washington recently lead Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and has a slew of upcoming projects, including David O. Russell’s new film. We can’t wait to see these two on screen together.
In fairly major news on the release front, a new Wonder Woman 1984 trailer reveals that Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) will be returning to our screens—at long last—in both theaters and streaming on HBO Max on December 25. Director Patty Jenkins’ long-awaited sequel will be available at no extra cost to HBO Max subscribers.
In case you haven’t been following the release status of Wonder Woman 1984, the film premiere date has been delayed three times now due to COVID-19. Now you can safely watch the new film in your own home—provided you’re an HBO Max subscriber—from December 25 to January 25. (We’re not exactly sure what happens after that month-long period, but a safe bet is Wonder Woman 1984 moves to Blu-ray and Digital rental before settling into the DCEU library on HBO Max for good.)
Wonder Woman 1984 sees Diana Prince alive and well in the 1980s, still mourning the loss of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). But, as you know by now, Steve’s back (somehow!) Their reunion comes just as Diana faces a host of new enemies, and you know Steve will want to get in on that action at her behest. One order of business for Wonder Woman is Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a sociopathic TV personality and media tycoon who wants the world to bow down to him and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Then there’s Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig), a.k.a. The Cheetah, who revealed in the film’s second trailer that she aims to be the apex predator.
Check out the new trailer below. Considering many of us won’t be home for the holidays this year, being able to spend time with these old friends will help.
For more on Wonder Woman 1984, check out these stories:
And that’s a wrap, folks! The fifth Scream in the franchise—which we’ve been calling Scream 5 all this time—has wrapped filming. To announce the end of principal photography, original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson took to Twitter to share some photos from set and reveal the film’s title and release date. You ready for this? It’s called Scream! It’ll debut in theaters on January 14, 2022.
The Scream crew managed to wrap production in Wilmington, North Carolina, amid our ongoing, nightmarish battle with COVID-19. We don’t know much about the plot, of course, save for the fact that Williamson had only great things to say about screenwriters Gary Busick and James Vanderbilt’s script.
Williamson’s tweet thread included a shoutout to the one and only Wes Craven, who helmed the previous four films in the franchise, and who passed away in August of 2015: “I’m excited for you to return to Woodsboro and get really scared again. I believe Wes would’ve been so proud of the film that Matt and Tyler are making. I’m thrilled to be reunited with Neve, Courteney, David, and Marley, and to be working alongside a new filmmaking team and incredible cast of newcomers that have come together to continue Wes’s legacy with the upcoming relaunch of the franchise that I hold so dear to my heart.”
That’s a wrap on Scream, which I’m excited to announce is the official title of the next film! Nearly 25 years ago, when I wrote Scream and Wes Craven brought it to life, I could not have imagined the lasting impact it would have on you, the fans. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/RCuhVUclG4
One has to imagine that Craven, who helmed Scream 4 in 2011, would be happy with the directors taking up the mantle. The upcoming Scream is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the duo behind 2019’s deliriously funReady or Not. The return to Woodsboro includes series lynchpin Neve Campbell, who has played Sidney Prescott in every film in the franchise. She’ll be joined by returning cast members David Arquette and Courteney Cox. Your newcomers are Jack Quaid, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Dylan Minnette, Mason Gooding, Kyle Gallner, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mikey Madison, and Sonia Ben Ammar.
Featured image: Key art from the upcoming Scream. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
In case you missed this bit of news yesterday, Paramount released the trailer for The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. If you haven’t been following the slow-burn buildup to this re-release (of sorts) to co-writer and director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III, you might be surprised to learn about this film. The Death of Michael Corleone is, in fact, The Godfather: Part III—but—it’s been re-edited, and boasts a new beginning and ending. The picture and sound quality have also been restored. While The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II are on just about every serious cinephile’s list of greatest films of all time, Part III is…not. Will this new re-edited version, with a new title, no less, elevate the final film in the legendary filmmaker’s trilogy? We’ll find out soon!
The Godfather: Part III tracks Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)’s life as he tries to ease his way out of the world he worked so assiduously to master—organized crime. Michael wants to go legit, but it’s tough to turn away from the mafia, your rivals and enemies, and up-and-comers like Vincent (Andy Garcia). While Part III was clearly not on par with the first two films, there are still some amazing moments, great performances, and memorable lines. “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” is one such classic.
Check out the new trailer, and a new featurette featuring Coppola himself, below. The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone will have a limited theatrical release on December 4, and then arrive on Blu-ray and digital on December 8.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone:
Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of The Godfather: Part III, director/screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola brings a definitive new edit and restoration of the final film in his epic Godfather trilogy—Mario Puzo’s THE GODFATHER, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), now in his 60s, seeks to free his family from crime and find a suitable successor to his empire. That successor could be fiery Vincent (Andy Garcia)… but he may also be the spark that turns Michael’s hope of business legitimacy into an inferno of mob violence. The film’s meticulously restored picture and sound, under the supervision of American Zoetrope and Paramount Pictures, includes a new beginning and ending, as well as changes to scenes, shots, and music cues. The resulting project reflects author Mario Puzo and Coppola’s original intentions of The Godfather: Part III, and delivers, in the words of Coppola, “a more appropriate conclusion to The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II.”’
Featured image: “The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
Co-writer and director Aneesh Chaganty’s Run moves like a thoroughbred thriller thanks to all its constituent parts working in perfect unison. The stellar cast, led by Sarah Paulson and newcomer Kiera Allen, Chagnaty’s lean script, co-written with Sev Ohanian, and Chagnaty and his crew’s exacting execution. The film is centered on the too-close-for-comfort relationship between a mother in daughter—Diane (Paulson) is a zealously devoted guardian of her daughter Chloe (Allen), who is paralyzed from the waist down and also deals with a variety of other ailments, including asthma and diabetes. Diana homeschools Chloe (without any technology, mind you), she manages her daily regimen of pills, and she keeps her beloved daughter more or less in her bedroom. Despite its title, Run begins with a teenager trapped by her mother’s omnipresent surveillance and care.
Diane (Sarah Paulson) and Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
Soon enough Chloe begins to suspect her mother’s dosing her with mysterious medication. These suspicions begin to metastasize into the belief that Diane might be determined to never let Chloe leave and to thwart her dreams of going to the University of Washington. To test her theory, Chloe convinces Diane to take her to a movie theater in town. Once there, in a terrifically shot scene that’s as tense as anything you’ve likely seen this year (besides your own life, perhaps), Chloe’s plan becomes clear. She makes a break for a nearby pharmacy to investigate the pills her mother’s giving her, desperately trying to complete this mission before Diane finds out.
Chloe (Kiera Allen) and Pharmacist (Sharon Bajer), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
For cinematographer Hillary Spera, working with Chaganty on Run felt charged with opportunity. Chaganty and Ohanian’s first draft was fairly bare-bones, Spera told me, but the vision for the project was clear. “Aneesh had this pretty simple story about a mother and a daughter and their relationship, but then he was weaving in these darker undertones,” she says. “One of his big influences is M. Night Shyamalan, whereas I come from more a classic thriller point of view, like Hitchcock, so the merging of the two was really nice.”
Spera sent Chaganty a vision board and then flew out to Winnipeg to scout for the all-important house where so much of the action would be set. “We had to find this house,” Spera says, and once they did, they began storyboarding every second of the film. “We came up with a very distinctive visual goal. We worked hard to set up the bones for the structure of the movie visually.”
Director Aneesh Chaganty and Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
The visual structure of the movie is something you’ll feel on a first viewing rather than immediately notice. But if you were to watch the film a second time, you’ll start to see how the frame begins to shift as Chloe begins to try to agitate against Diane’s vise-like grip. “The power of lensing,” Spera says, is how she accomplishes this feat. “The subliminal way we show the daughter’s overly structured world, then with Sarah’s character, the way the lenses get lower as she becomes more imposing. The subliminal thing, it’s such a cool part of being a filmmaker. You can infuse these feelings, it’s a little puppet mastery, but it’s great. You can really mess with people.”
Diane (Sarah Paulson) and Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
“The big thing in the movie is thematically is repetition and routine, Chloe’s life falls into these repeated actions,” Spera says. “She’s a disabled person, and we worked Kiera Allen, who’s disabled in real life, but the idea is that Chloe’s not hindered at all. It’s the same with Keira, she doesn’t think of herself that way, so visually we wanted to keep these repeated shots and setups that we go back to often, to show the structure of her life, so when things start to go awry you can feel it. We had these references like Rosemary’s Baby, frames within frames, this feeling of claustrophobia, so when she falls out of this structured world everything gets bigger, and that’s scary, but she thrives.”
Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
Spera found working with Chaganty on Run to be a wholly collaborative experience. Although he had a clear vision of what he wanted Run to be, he was open to new ideas, new directions, new ways of achieving Run‘s increasingly tense sense of acceleration towards the unknown. From color themes (Chloe’s color is purple, Diane’s is green) to the subtlest tweaks of lighting and costume, the devil really is in the details. “The camera movements are very intentional, with the camera becoming a little more active as Chloe becomes more active,” Spera says. In one bravura sequence on the roof, which Spera likened to their version of a Mission: Impossible moment, the camera moves with Chloe in a way less burdened than before. These things are subtle, but potent, which is literally by design.
Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
As for the performers, Paulson is, predictably, terrific, but Spera was bowled over by Kiera Allen. “Casting Kiera is a huge deal,” she says, adding that Chaganty, co-writer and producer Ohanian, and producer Natalie Qasabian were all determined to cast someone differently-abled. “It was about representation and visibility. That person in that experience has that relationship in a different way than an actress who is just sitting in a wheelchair. On top of that, Kiera’s an amazing actress, she really brought it, it was so inspiring.”
Spera says that one film that was in the back of her mind was David Fincher’s Panic Room, his 2002 thriller in which Jodie Foster plays a divorced mom forced to take refuge in the family’s panic room with her daughter during a break-in. “The way that Panic Room allows that space to live and be its own character was really great,” Spera says. For Run, the details of any given shot are often clues, and Spera was tasked with making sure both the macro shots (say, of a bedroom) and the micro shots (say, of a pill) resonated.
Chloe (Kiera Allen), shown. (Photo by: Allen Fraser/Hulu)
“Those details were where Aneesh would do a lot of his storytelling,” Spera says. “The food on the plate, the way it’s being cooked, the details on the pill bottle labels. We skipped most of the medium shots. The minute detail of the world was the way clues were revealed.”
Using mostly anamorphic lenses, Spera loved the way the images in these spaces ultimately looked. “It just feels almost like a 3D quality, it’s a little bit rounder, you feel the focus breathing,” she says. “When you change the plane of focus you feel that rack happening almost in an aggressive way. But I love it, it feels organic and alive, it harkens back to older films. A lot of this film is in that 2:3:9 aspect ratio, which is about Chloe’s height.”
Run is a film that gallops towards its conclusion with such confidence and skill you’ll be excused for missing all the little details Spera, Chaganty, and their fellow crewmembers buried in the frames. Watch again, however, and they’ll emerge. This kind of filmmaking was evident in Chaganty’s favorite writer/director’s masterpiece.
“Even in the way Aneesh’s idea of going back and the clues are all there, like in Sixth Sense when you watch again you see all of it,” Spera says. “I liked that’s where his head was at. I really had a blast making this movie.”
Behold—a new black-and-white teaser for Zack Snyder’s Justice League. We’ve already seen a colorized version of this teaser, but then again, not quite this teaser. The latest gives us some fresh footage from Snyder’s upcoming film, which will air on HBO Max as a four-part miniseries. Assuming that if you clicked on this story you’ve been paying some attention to the winding road that got us here, this version of Justice League will not only be different from the Joss Whedon-directed version we saw in 2017 but includes new footage from recent reshoots with the cast. It’ll also include Jared Leto’s Joker (!!) in the cast.
The new look is, like the last look, set to Leonard Cohen’s iconic “Hallelujah.” The fresh footage includes a brief shot of Cyborg (Ray Fisher) watching some kids play football in the street; a shot of the Batmobile mowing down some demons, and a new look at Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) fighting yet more demons. There’s also a shot of Aquaman (Jason Momoa) in the middle of a battle.
Your returning champions—Ben Affleck’s Batman, Henry Cavill’s Superman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, Fisher’s Cyborg, Momoa’s Aquaman, and Ezra Miller’s Flash are all here.
Check out the new teaser here. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is due on HBO Max sometime in 2021.
For more on Zack Snyder’s Justice League, check out these stories:
A girl triumphing in a boys’ world of midcentury competitive chess is at the crux of Netflix’s limited series The Queen’s Gambit, which manages to make the board game not only thrilling but evocatively stylish, spanning Beth Harmon’s (Anya Taylor-Joy and Isla Johnston, as young Beth) bleak 1950s-era childhood in a Kentucky orphanage through her jet-setting young adulthood during the 1960s. Beth, drawn from Walter Tevis’s novel of the same name, is a chess prodigy introduced to the game by the Methuen Orphanage’s enigmatic janitor, Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp). At first merely a way to escape the daily drudgery of life at an orphanage, the game becomes Beth’s gateway to her place in the world as well as a source of rescue for her adoptive mother, Alma (Marielle Heller), a stifled homemaker.
But it’s a bumpy road from Methuen to international champions’ tournaments, and Beth’s roots are never far from the chessboard, whether they spring up in the form of her mentally ill biological mother’s unhinged prophecies or sweeter memories of Mr. Shaibel’s patient training. The show electrifies Beth’s increasingly high-stakes matches by intertwining them with past memories or current growing pains, an idea writer and director Scott Frank first floated during shooting and which came together in the editing room. The concept for pacing the matches wasn’t “necessarily playing them like straight flashbacks, but giving them this immediate rhythm” explains the series’ editor, Michelle Tesoro (Godless, On the Basis of Sex). “That was something that we created in post, to try to give a bigger context to the current scene, and have it be about her internal turmoil or whatever she was obsessing about, whether it was Townes [a potential love interest played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd], or sexuality, or Shaibel saying ‘you resign.’”
As we cut between Beth’s games and the rest of her life, addiction reveals itself as another layer of that context. Though Beth loses a key match thanks to a hangover, a tranquilizer dependency also unexpectedly drives her career forward. Methuen keeps its young charges under control with “vitamins,” which an older girl, Jolene (Moses Ingram) advises young Beth to save for nighttime, lest she spend the day in a dizzy stupor. In bed, the pills allow Beth to visualize chess games on the ceiling, an unorthodox technique she takes with her into the competition (after all, it’s the era of “Mother’s Little Helper,” and with unhappy Alma dependent on tranquilizers for her own reasons, the pills are easy for a teenager to get).
Created in visual effects, these shadowy boards are an elegant representation of the inner workings of Beth’s mind and were among the show’s more complicated sequences to work out. “We worked on the look of those matches almost until the very end,” says Tesoro. “A lot of it was just trying to figure out how they appear, what they feel like, how dense are they, what do they look like when you’re up close to them, what do they look like when you’re down on the floor?” When Beth snaps into a competitive hallucinogenic reverie, the stakes go up, both in terms of the match at hand and the sense that all is not well, despite our heroine racking up the wins.
At the heart of The Queen’s Gambit, Beth’s growing chess fortunes are twinned with her coming of age. Initially regarded askance by the nerds of the chess world, these boys become friends, mentors, and lovers. No two of her matches with them are alike. “From inception to execution it was always thought of as, how can we do this differently every time?” Tesoro says. By the time she reaches her apex of competition, we’re as steeped in Queen’s gambits and Sicilian defenses as we are in how much a win here means to Beth in every fiber of her being. Compared to all her games leading to this moment, the most important match of all is almost stately in its straightforwardness. “I feel in a lot of ways that the work we did prior to that scene set you up to be in that place, to be emotionally moved,” says Tesoro. The moment, everything we’ve come to expect from Beth and her chief Soviet opponent, Borgov, earns its clarity through all the hard work that came before.
Swedish documentarian Nathan Grossman made a leap of faith in 2018 when he decided to film an unknown 15-year-old with a sign staging a one-person strike outside the StockholmParliament in order to bring attention to the global climate crisis.
Over the course of 18 months of filming, Greta Thunberg became an international figure and an icon to an increasingly energized youth movement around the world demanding immediate action to address climate change. Grossman, who lives in Stockholm, was there to capture it all nearly single-handedly. His intimate portrait of Thunberg, now known far and wide simply by her first name, is chronicled in his documentary I Am Greta, now available on Hulu.
Greta Thunberg in I AM GRETA. Courtesy Hulu.
“We went on an emotional journey over this crazy year; it’s hard to remember how quickly she goes from no one knowing her to becoming famous in a few months,” says Grossman. He didn’t know where any of this would lead when he got a tip from a friend who knew of Thunberg and her family and thought Grossman might be interested. “I knew that she was going to do the strike but when I went [to the Parliament building], I didn’t even know what she looked like. From that point, I spent lots of time filming her activism strikes. As she progressed to traveling more and getting famous, I asked if I could join her on some of her trips and I got to know more about her and her family,” he says.
Greta Thunberg travels to New York by sea in I AM GRETA. Courtesy Hulu.
Those trips were no small thing. Thunberg “practices what she preaches,” says Grossman, so she traveled to conferences and government meetings only by electric car or rail, usually accompanied by her father while her equally supportive mother stayed home with Thunberg’s sister and the family dogs. The film follows Thunberg as she addresses the Swedish government on climate change, attends a UN conference in Poland, and culminates with her appearance at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019. Thunberg shunned fuel-guzzling air travel and instead arrived in New York harbor to cheering crowds after a grueling three-week voyage across the Atlantic Ocean with her father and Grossman who filmed the entire journey alongside her on the 60-foot sailing boat.
“I was thinking of hiring someone but after speaking to the captain, he said it was not dangerous but it would be bumpy; everything would shake. I wanted to bring the viewer onto this journey and felt I needed to be there to do that,” says Grossman. “I wanted the audience to fully understand Greta’s way of seeing the world. A film can bring people inside the head of someone. I wanted to give the audience the chance to see the world from her point of view and perspective; let her take us through the story instead of having talking head experts tell us about her.”
Traveling with Thunberg—a trip from Stockholm to Paris by train can take some 36 hours, Grossman points out—allowed the filmmaker to gain his subject’s trust which provides the film’s many moments of intimacy and humor. We see Thunberg as an ordinary teenager as well as her growing discomfort with her sudden celebrity. A shy, self-described “nerd” who’s been candid that she has Asperger’s syndrome, Thunberg becomes frustrated as her unwanted fame starts to eclipse her well-researched, sharp message that swift action on climate change must happen right now. The film reveals Thunberg’s insistence on speaking out even as her high profile draws criticism, even death threats, from the right-wing. This tough but vulnerable teen starts to feel the increasing burden of responsibility.
Greta Thunberg in I AM GRETA. Courtesy Hulu.
“Greta is on point; she is scientifically focused so she is the complete opposite of many politicians who are long-winded and obsessed with talking, so it’s an interesting conflict,” Grossman says. “I’m happy we got to capture her with the Pope and with [French President Emmanuel] Macron but there is some hypocrisy in politicians who just want to take a selfie with her so they can cross ‘interested in climate change’ off the list. But these [activist] kids and are smarter than that. They know what taking action means.”
Looking back on his long journey filming Thunberg, Grossman says taking a chance on an interesting story is simply what documentary filmmakers do.
“I know that both Honeyland and The Wolfpack, two amazing documentaries, also started on another note when they didn’t know what they were headed for in any way,” he says. “So much is based on serendipity and being interested in stories and people. You just never know. I have hard drives at home filled with [footage] of all the times I tried or [stories] that never went anywhere or the tip I got wasn’t interested at all or didn’t work in front of the camera. It says to all documentarians that we should stay alert and stay humble and curious about the world around us.”
We already knew that James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad had an insane cast, but now the writer/director has revealed another big star is on board. Gunn took to Twitter to share a photo of himself and old pal Sylvester Stallone—the two collaborated on Gunn’s The Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2—to let us know Stallone’s a part of The Suicide Squad cast. He joins A-listers like Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, and Idris Elba, phenomenal character actors like Michael Rooker and David Dastmalchian, up-and-comers like Storm Reid and Daniela Melchior, and beloved hybrid leading men/character actors like Nathan Fillion and John Cena. And that’s only like half the cast.
Here’s Gunn’s tweet:
Always love working with my friend @TheSlyStallone & our work today on #TheSuicideSquad was no exception. Despite Sly being an iconic movie star, most people still don’t have any idea what an amazing actor this guy is. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/LFVBoxscKR
Now the internet will do its thing and start speculating on who Sly’s playing. One credible guess from Deadlineis that he’s voicing King Shark. Considering we know so little about Gunn’s script, and that there are so many bizarro characters from DC’s rich bench of weirdos, we might end up being really surprised.
We probably won’t know for a bit—The Suicide Squad isn’t due in theaters until August 6, 2021. We’ll share more when we know more.
For more on The Suicide Squad, check out these stories:
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CA – APRIL 19: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been shot in black and white. Color version not available.) Actor Sylvester Stallone at The World Premiere of Marvel Studios Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, CA April 19th, 2017 (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
Ted Lasso began life nearly a decade ago, in what must now seem like a more innocent time, as a character in a series of promos for NBC as they embarked on coverage of Britain’s Premier League. That character, created and portrayed by SNL alum Jason Sudeikis, is an American football coach, hot off a miracle season with a perpetually struggling college, who is hired by England’s mythical AFC Richmond squad to coach, well, football.
In the expanded series that has become one of the first breakout hits for Apple TV+, Lasso doesn’t realize that he was initially hired by the vengeful owner, Rebecca—played by Hannah Waddingham—to deliberately fail, in order to exact revenge on the philandering, wealthy ex-husband from whom she bought the club. And who appears to have loved the team more than he did her (along with numerous young ladies whose pictures keep appearing in the tabloids).
From this setup, the avuncular Lasso embarks on a modernized Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court sort of adventure, the homespun American bringing his own particular wisdom to a somewhat restrictive Kingdom (or Queendom), yet also able to take in nearly as many life lessons as those he usually imparts, however inadvertently.
Part of that innocent time in which the character was spawned stems from the fact it was pre-pandemic, and now certain realities have intruded on how the adventures of the redoubtable coach navigate post-production, particularly on the audio side. How can one do the ADR and looping, for example, if actors can no longer travel to the studios to do the recording?
What helped, according to supervising sound editor Brent Findley, was that “principal photography was in the can before the Ides of March.”Following that, “the first ADR sessions were innocently and naively normal.”
On set of ‘Ted Lasso.’ Courtesy of Apple TV
Sort of like Coach Lasso! But then came those “Ides,” in the form of a novel new virus, and suddenly people couldn’t travel easily, much less lounge around in the tight confines of a recording studio. At the same time, while suddenly faced with setting up ways to finish dialogue recording remotely, Findley didn’t want to “put an asterisk next to everything (then) five years down the road say ‘remember Covid? That’s why the sound was terrible.’”
His pandemic-prompted response was kind of a multi-tiered approach, depending on what needed to be recorded.
For various members of the AFC Richmond squad, when he needed yelling during gameplay, he “asked them to go in their backyards and shout in their iPhones.” Which was better than shouting in their living rooms since it’s “tough to make inside sound like outdoors.”
When out shouting in their yards, perhaps piquing their neighbors’ interest, the thespian soccer players were tasked with doing “it a bunch of different times, a bunch of different ways…and somewhere in there is the shout.”
For more specific scenes, with lines requiring actual dialogue, Findley would often first scope out the actors’ homes via a Zoom meeting, looking to find which spaces might be most acoustically suitable for recording, whether a closet, an office, or something else.
He would then send them mics, usually the USB-compatible Apogee MiC Plus, along with “a stand, and an isolation filter (a curved, sound-absorbing panel) to help if the room has some reflection in it…and then we would use their device for the actual recording. iPhones,” he adds,” are also really good digital recorders,” which dovetails nicely with the network the show is on.
He’d instruct the at-home recordists “to choose uncompressed audio (for) higher resolution audio. Make sure you shut off that compressed audio!” The Apogee, in this case, is “doing all the work,” with its own built-in converters. Otherwise “compression kicks in when you’re using the onboard mic.”
Waddingham did some work of her own, in rerecording a version of Let It Go her character sang at a karaoke night. “She has a killer voice,” Findley says, “and she’s very particular. They gave her the option to listen to the final edit,” and then decide if she wanted to redo any of it. “She actually sang the song again in her bedroom,” and “some of what she did (there) is in the show. Not all of it (but) I challenge anyone to find the difference.”
Sudeikis had a similar setup, with an Apogee that Findley sent him, though there are no reports of him doing Disney covers in his bedroom. Somewhat surprisingly, Arlo White, the real-life sports presenter —if we’re sticking with the locally authentic argot—who plays himself on the show, and announces the matches, also got an upgrade.
White was already set up for podcasting at home, and while his own rig was fine “eight out of ten episodes,” when he’s chatting on the sidelines with fellow announcers, when it came to his “full-on play calling” for critical and plot-advancing matches, “his podcast microphone couldn’t handle it.” His ADR work, in other words, was all over but the shouting; hence the additional gear.
With the news that the show has been renewed for not just one, but two additional seasons, perhaps not only set but even produced, in a post-plague future, does Findley see any permanent changes in how his own end of posting might work, now that he’s figured out how to network his way to quality sound?
He’s quick to note that the benefits of the studio include “the soundproofing and the professional equipment,” where the onus is not on the actors to try and cover up background sounds of barking dogs, moving garbage trucks, leaf-blowing gardeners, etc.
But he also allows that if they’re shooting in New Orleans, for example, “and the nearest stage we can find is in Baton Rouge…if we only need 2 -3 lines from them, we know we can make it work,” by which he means, no one has to send a car for someone for a long distance, now that they have other options.“We collapse the radius of what is required to get a pro studio involved,” he says, even waxing seasonally that “someone can go home for the holidays, to a small town, (and) we don’t have to hold anything til they’re back in New York or LA. The anxiety is lifted on how to get someone who isn’t in a major market.”
And if the character of Ted Lasso is about anything, it’s about lifting anxiety, which is likely why there’s been such a strong response to the show, and its nimbly recorded sounds, in such an anxiety-producing era as this.
There is so much pleasure to be derived from this look at Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming Let Them All Talk. First and foremost, it’s watching this sensational cast, led by Meryl Streep as a well-known author embarking on a girls’ trip with her former best friends (played by Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen) with her nephew, played by Lucas Hedges, along for the ride. The ladies plus nephew board the Queen Mary II to take a leisurely cruise and reconnect. The sheer acting power alone present amongst these legendary performers (with Hedges already a rising star) is the first and main source of pleasure. Then there’s Soderbergh’s unfussy, expert eye leading us through these proceedings. But there’s so much more. How about a script from one of the best living short story writers in the world, Deborah Eisenberg, who the cast recently revealed was on set and extremely helpful during filming.
There are other intriguing things at play here. One is that Streep, Bergen, and Wiest revealed to Entertainment Weeklythat the film was almost entirely improvised. When asked about the “improvised feel” of the movie, Streep replied, “I mean, they would give us the outlines of a situation, and then we knew where we had to end up. But they didn’t tell us how to get there.” To which Bergen replied: “They gave us the scenes and the synopses of the scenes. And then we filled them in, if we could.” Wiest then said that with Eisenberg on set, they could ask her any question about their characters, where they were in the sequence, and where they were headed. “Debbie was there all the time, and she was wonderful,” Wiest said.
Which brings us to the third piece of what makes this trailer so good—Let Them All Talk looks like a film about friendship, female friendship later in life to be specific, with the stakes set squarely on the emotional, meaningful register. There’s no killer plague or financial chicanery here (two topics Soderbergh has expertly handled in the past), just some of our best performers given the space and freedom to roam. That sounds just about perfect right now.
Let Them All Talk premieres on HBO Max on December 10. Check out the trailer below.
Here’s the synopsis from Warner Media:
HBO Max debuted the first trailer and key art for their new original feature film “Let Them All Talk” today. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh directed the movie which stars Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner Candice Bergen, Academy Award nominee Lucas Hedges, Gemma Chan (“Crazy Rich Asians”), and Academy Award winner Dianne Wiest. Deborah Eisenberg wrote the screenplay and Gregory Jacobs (“The Laundromat,” “Magic Mike”) produced. The film begins streaming on HBO Max Thursday, December 10.
“Let Them All Talk” tells the story of a celebrated author (Meryl Streep) who takes a journey with some old friends (Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest) to have some fun and heal old wounds. Her nephew (Lucas Hedges) comes along to wrangle the ladies as well as her new literary agent (Gemma Chan) who is desperate to find out about her next book.
Photograph by HBO Max
Featured image: Lucas Hedges, Meryl Streep. Photograph by HBO Max
The Fresh Prince himself has revealed the trailer for HBO Max’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Airreunion special, and it’s precisely what you need—what we all need—on a Friday. Will Smith is back with series regulars Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid, and Alfonso Ribeiro. The reunion wouldn’t be complete without recurring co-star and longtime Smith collaborator DJ Jazzy Jeff, who’s also on hand. The whole gang is back at the Banks household, and we really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. The show was taped on the 30th anniversary of the original series premiere date.
If you’re thinking, wait, there’s one cast member who’s missing—she’s not. The reunion includes a conversation between Smith and Janet Hubert, the original Aunt Viv, for the first time in 27 years. Their chat is said to be candid and emotional. Yes, let us please get emotional about something that doesn’t feel like it’s literally life or death!
Check out the trailer here. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion will premiere on HBO Max on November 19.
Here’s the official synopsis:
In the unscripted special, Smith is joined by series regulars Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Joseph Marcell, Daphne Maxwell Reid and Alfonso Ribeiro as well as recurring co-star DJ Jazzy Jeff for a family reunion on set in the Banks’ home for a look back at the groundbreaking show. Taped on the 30th anniversary of the original series premiere date, Smith also sat down with Janet Hubert, who originated the role of Aunt Viv, for the first time in 27 years for an emotional reunion and a candid conversation.
As previously announced, the special will be a funny and heartfelt night full of music, dancing, and a look at the cultural impact the series has had since its debut 30 years ago. Produced by Westbrook Media, the reunion will launch exclusively on HBO Max on November 19. HBO Max is the exclusive SVOD home of the full original series library in the US, debuting on the platform when it launched in May.
Editor Marco Capalbo has been working with the inimitable German director Werner Herzog for the past eight years, most recently on Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds,which premieres on Apple TV+ on November 13. We chat with Marco, who specializes in editing documentaries, about tackling the vast subject matter of meteors, comets and their influence on ancient religions, and how he looks for those “Herzogian moments” that make Herzog’s documentaries unique.
The way that you’ve found that balance between the scientific, the mystical, and the cultural is a really interesting take on the subject of meteors. How did this project come about for you?
I’ve worked with Werner on a number of projects going back seven or eight years now. He has had the same team on the last couple of films, which I’m very grateful to be part of. So Werner just kind of rolls in and says, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re doing the thing about meteors.’
And what is it about your relationship with Werner that makes it successful, do you think?
I think that we have established a kind of a working relationship over time and I think we share certain qualities that make it go very easily. We both like to be very efficient, so we can work quickly. We don’t over-talk things because I kind of know now what the project needs, having done things with him. Of course, now it varies project by project, as to what the needs of the project are. This has a lot of science and detail and it’s always balanced. Trying to keep it from going down the rabbit holes is the thing. You could go down and never come out.
British volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer and Werner Herzog behind the scenes of “Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on November 13.
It’s such a vast topic, and, in many ways, an unknowable subject. How did you break it down to try to find ways to tell that story?
Some of that was by virtue of the sequences that were shot, which covered five continents—Australia, North America, Europe, Asia, and Antarctica. Each one had a different story around it. The trick was to find some way to bind the things together, even if it’s not a literal thing. And then really to find, because it’s Werner, these kinds of Herzogian moments that really lift the film.And I know that those are going to be there somewhere. We kind of look for the opportunity there, where it’s the right moment and the right context, to veer off into something really unexpected. They’re things that most people wouldn’t even consider shooting. Then we have it in the editing room and we look at each other kind of like, Aha, maybe this? Only Werner would allow it and go that way off-topic. And yet it isn’t off-topic. It is and it isn’t, but it also provides that breather from just the dry, factual stuff, which has to be there. And it’s very interesting.
“Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on November 13. Courtesy Apple TV+
Is that part of the attraction of working with Werner that you can have these unexpected moments?
It’s a big part of it. And it works both ways. I can throw things in that someone else would look at you like, What, are you crazy? The trick of it is to be ready to move on whatever comes at you. I know Werner and in those moments you want to just kind of go with it and let it happen. It’s not something pre-planned. He shoots very, very little. In fact, he gets very annoyed when they’re out there just shooting too much.
That must make your job a little bit easier?
We like to think that by the end we’ve used every bit of footage, and it’s not quite true, but there’s an efficiency there. The scene about the miners and the installation in the mining town seems to have no connection to the story but it’s transformed into something that seems to be about meteors and it does tap into our thoughts and fears about that.
Werner Herzog behind the scenes of “Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on November 13.
Do you make recommendations about filming additional footage? What’s the process there for you?
This particular film was shot over quite a long period of time. So, sometimes I would get it before Werner would come in and I’d have access to it before. So we knew a little bit that there were areas that we thought needed to be filled in and we could steer it a little bit.
You have a background in music and you’ve directed several films yourself. How do you think that that influences the way that you approach a project like this?
Not in a literal way, I think. In relation to the music side of things, I have a sense of speed and timing. I think information flow in film corresponds to the tempo in music. And you know, you don’t just go fast, fast, fast. Then you have to balance it with something a bit slower. I think it’s interesting that the music is something placed very early in the process, actually. Sometimes it changes, but often it doesn’t or only changes slightly. So it’s part of the scene really from the beginning. It’s not a case that everything’s caught and then all the music goes in. Not at all.
“Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on November 13. Courtesy Apple TV+
You included classic scenes from Hollywood disaster movies in Fireball, which is clever because it’s the only reference most people have of a meteor crashing into the earth. Who’s idea was that?
Right. Those are a lot of fun. I went out and found this stuff because I don’t think I’m giving any secrets away or to say that Werner is not that up on pop culture. I mean, he is in his way, but then he isn’t in this other way. Which I think is also nice because he has such a refreshing take on it and he’s not jaded by it. I went out and thought, Well, let’s just find the most outrageous stuff. And we were lucky we were able to use some of it, particularly a nice chunk from Deep Impact.
The humor is another thing that differentiates this kind of a documentary from a Nat Geo-type thing.
Without humor, the eyes would glaze over. It’s just nothing but facts and facts and facts. You need some relief too. And also because if you really start thinking about what could come out of the sky, you won’t be able to get out of bed.
“Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on November 13. Courtesy Apple TV+
And how do you know when the film is finished?
That’s an excellent question. It’s very hard to answer. Let me say this about it, which is a good philosophy of editing. There’s a point where you can overcook it. And, yeah, you don’t want to undercook it either, so that it’s just a mess. But you have to find the point when it’s done. Yes, you could go on and on and never stop but it could just be diminishing returns and you may actually be making it worse. It’s really just to be bold enough, I suppose, to say that it’s done. That’s it. And it’s very hard to articulate. You look for this, you look for that. It’s more of a feel.
What did you enjoy the most about working on this project?
This is a little true on a lot of projects, but I enjoy going into something not knowing anything about it. I knew certainly no more than your average person. Which it turns out, at least for me, to be not very much. And also I’d say it’s working with somebody I’ve worked with before. It’s enjoyable to just be doing it.
It was only two days ago we were discussing how exciting the pending premiere of Marvel Studios’ first Disney+ series WandaVisionwas. The show sounds absolutely bizarre in the best possible way, and the heaps of talented people involved, both in front of and behind the camera, and their collective excitement to share their work, had us and every other Marvel fan counting down the days until the premiere. Now it’s been revealed that we’re going to have to wait a little bit longer to see Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda and Paul Bettany’s Vision populating a bizarro world set in the golden era of TV sitcoms—the show will air on January 15, 2021.
Okay, so that’s not the news we were hoping for, but, it’ll just give us something to be excited for during those dreary first few weeks of the new year. Along with this news, Disney+ and Marvel released some new photos from the series, which will run six episodes and will feel more like “six Marvel movies” in sitcom form, as one of the show’s stars, Teyonah Parris, told EW. Created by Jac Schaeffer (Captain Marvel, Black Widow), the series will find Wanda and Vision trying to pass themselves off as a couple of suburban normies.
Parris is one of the faces we see in this new batch of photos—she plays the older version of Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel. We’ve also got an image of Kathryn Hahn’s character, too. Joining Bettany, Olsen, Parris, and Hahn are two members of the extended MCU; Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis from Thor, and Randall Park as FBI Agent Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp.
So sure, it’s a bit of a bummer that we won’t get to tuck into this series over the holidays, but, good things come to those who wait.
While a lot of the oxygen around Disney+ series understandably gets suctioned into the engines of the Falcon Crest (we’re making a joke about The Mandalorian‘s massive popularity, gang), the streaming channel has had some really excellent documentary series, too. From Into the Unknown: Making of Frozen 2 to Magic of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney+ has offered viewers fascinating inside looks at some of these beloved franchises. You can add to that list the upcoming Inside Pixar, which will take viewers inside one of the most successful, consistently inventive studios in film history.
Inside Pixar is a different kind of documentary series, which is more or less what you’d expect from this powerhouse studio, which rarely likes to repeat itself (even within their franchises like Toy Story). These are essentially mini-documentaries, with installments often not lasting more than 10 minutes long. The first batch, to be released tomorrow, includes five mini-documentaries that total about an hour.
Short and sweet doesn’t mean lacking in substance, however. Each of these looks will explore how Pixar artists find their stories, and how these individuals passions are fostered by Pixar, and ultimately make Pixar films that much better. Take Steven Hunter, for example, an animator who wrote and directed the first LGBTQ+-themed Pixar short Out, which is currently available on Disney+. Or how about longtime script supervisor Jessica Heidt, who helped create a hugely influential program to track the gender disparity of characters within the Pixar scripts. You’ll also meet artist Deanna Marsigliese, whose work has helped shape Incredibles 2 and the upcoming Soul. The mini-docs also highlight how Pixar’s matured over the years into a more inclusive place, thanks in part to the leadership of Up and Soul director Pete Docter, now the chief creative officer.
In sum, if you love Pixar movies, Inside Pixar is like pixelated manna from heaven and a must-watch.
Inside Pixar premieres Friday, November 13 on Disney+.
