“It was the best choice in a bunch of bad choices at the moment” and a “heartbreaking experience,” Jenkins said, according to Deadline from a report on the ground. Like the rest of Warner Bros.’ 2021 slate, most of the studio’s 2020 titles went straight to the streaming platform. “Wonder Woman 1984” ended up being watched by nearly four million households, but Jenkins said the hybrid release was “detrimental to the movie....
The cackling lovechild of Abe Vigoda and the Wicked Witch of the West, Doofenshmirtz has come up with all sorts of cockamamie schemes to destroy Perry over the years — one for each of the 222 episodes of “Phineas and Ferb” that aired on the Disney Channel between 2007 and 2015 — but the Chicken Replace-inator has to be among the dumbest and most inspired. Decades after Jeff “Swampy” Marsh and Dan Povenmire first hit upon the basic idea behind their wonderful animated series for kids of all ages, they’re still finding new ways to have fun with it....
In a statement attributed to “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar, and their allies,” Pixar team members alleged that Disney executives have demanded to cut “nearly every moment of overtly gay affection…regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar.” The Pixar letter is a direct response to Chapek’s March 4 memo, which promised that the “biggest impact we can have in creating a more inclusive world is through the inspiring content we produce....
A husky-voiced Swedish Kesha look-alike lands at LAX and walks up to the customs booth wearing a furry, multi-colored jacket that screams “look at me!” while also whispering “but not too hard.” We already suspect that she’s a porn star, or at least in Los Angeles to become one — there has to be some reason why the opening credits were soundtracked by the unmistakable sounds of performative deep-throats and flesh T-boning against bare thighs — and so we’re in on the gag when the customs agent asks if our girl is in town for business or pleasure....
Yet this year, several films about sexuality and queerness from the Middle East are on the cusp of overcoming legal and cultural barriers to become their country’s submissions, and they’re all traveling to the Toronto International Film Festival this week. In the past, films with LGBTQ characters in countries that outlaw homosexuality have faced a tough road in Oscar season, with the most notorious recent case being the 2018 lesbian romance “Rafiki,” from Kenya....
Quentin Tarantino revealed during Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he wished he directed the 2001 Japanese action film “Battle Royale,” which the Oscar winner said directly inspired Suzanne Collins’ “Hunger Games” series and subsequent films. “Battle Royale,” directed by Kinji Fukasaku and based on the novel by Kōshun Takami, follows a group of junior high students who are forced to fight to the death in a dystopian world. “I’m a big fan of the Japanese movie ‘Battle Royale,’ which is what ‘Hunger Games’ was based on,” Tarantino explained....
Aloi is a member of “the Alexandrian coven that began in 1960s Boston” and has “designed and led rituals for hundreds of people,” while Grossman “identifies as Pagan” and recently consulted on the script for Zoe Lister-Jones’ “The Craft: Legacy.” Gross also “wrote a book and hosts a podcast about the modern witchcraft movement.” What do these witches think of “The Witch?” They are big fans, especially of Eggers’ unforgettable ending in which Taylor-Joy’s protagonist Thomasin leaves her family to join a coven of witches....
What’s so surprising about the ending of “The Morning Show” Episode 3 isn’t that Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) kisses another woman. It’s not even that she kisses Laura Peterson (Julianna Margulies), her network colleague assigned to do an in-depth report on Bradley, Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston), and their renovated Morning Show. What’s surprising is that Bradley kisses anyone at all. “In Season 1, we didn’t really go into anyone’s personal life,” Witherspoon said in an interview with IndieWire....
“We did all that work on hiatus, then continue to have a couple of Zoom meetings throughout Season 6 of ‘Saul’ so that the second I got back, we could do some physical production prep, and then go ahead and shoot it,” Seehorn said. “The majority of the people that are on ‘Cooper’s Bar’ are friends of mine, and we just wanted to do something together. So we had a blast....
Earlier: Rita Moreno came to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s defense during a June 15 interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Miranda’s film adaptation of “In the Heights” has received backlash over colorism as the cast lacks any dark-skinned Afro-Latino lead actors. Moreno, whose documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” is executive produced by Miranda, brought up the “In the Heights” colorism controversy herself during an interview with Colbert....
Directed by Aneil Karia, who caught critics’ attention last year with the visceral Ben Whishaw–starrer “Surge,” “The Long Goodbye” is a tense 12-minute spin through a British-Pakistani man’s worst nightmare. What begins as a simple domestic scene pivots on a dime as armed guards swarm the family home, arresting everyone and worse. The film shifts once again as Ahmed delivers an emotional rap as a poignant soliloquy to the camera....
Scorsese kicked off production on “Killers of the Flower Moon” last month. The movie is now filming in Bartlesville, Pawhuska, and Osage County, Oklahoma. De Niro stars as William Hale, a powerful local rancher in 1920s Oklahoma. The ensemble cast also includes Leonardo Dicaprio as Hale’s nephew Ernest Burkhart, Lily Gladstone as Ernest’s wife Mollie Burkhart, and Jesse Plemons as Tom White, an FBI agent tasked with investigating a string of murders among the Osage Nation....
“Rob was impossible to get dialect coaching,” “Devil” director Campos said in an interview with The Insider. “He just didn’t want to do it. He was just adamant about figuring it out on his own. He would be like, ‘I’m gonna do this thing, and that thing, with a little bit of this.’” Campos sent Pattinson the “Devil” script while the actor was in production on the Safdie brothers’ movie “Good Time....
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Raimi opened up about his return to the Marvel universe while reminiscing about his scrapped plans for “Spider-Man 4” with Tobey Maguire. The director also kept the door open for reteaming with Maguire for a new “Spider-Man” movie if it could fit into the MCU’s plans. “If there was a great story there, I think it’d be … my love for the characters hasn’t diminished one iota,” Raimi said....
“Never could we have imagined what the world experienced in 2020 and continues to experience today,” organizers wrote in a Tweet. “While we are buoyed by the rollout of the vaccine and the growing number of individuals being inoculated, it appears that July will still be too early to safely hold an in-person even of the magnitude of Comic-Con. For this reason, we have made the challenging decision to postpone Comic-Con 2021 as an in-person gathering until our 2022 dates, and once again hold this year’s celebration as the free online Comic-Con@Home....
MacFarlane has long been a vocal opponent of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, so much so that he said in 2018 that he was “embarrassed” to work for the same parent company that counts Carlson as one of its employees. Now the “Family Guy” creator is making headlines for sharing his wish that “Family Guy” aired on any other network besides Fox. “Tucker Carlson’s latest opinion piece once again makes me wish ‘Family Guy’ was on any other network,” MacFarlane wrote August 1 on Twitter....
While the festival features a variety of world and North American premieres, it will also serve as a Bay Area launchpad for a number of festival favorites, like Sundance darling “Cha Cha Real Smooth” (which Apple TV+ will roll out later this year), John Boyega–starrer “892,” NatGeo volcanologist documentary “Fire of Love,” Terence Davies’ “Benediction,” Claire Denis’ “Both Sides of the Blade,” Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening,” Sundance Best Director winner “Palm Trees and Power Lines” from Jamie Dack, and much more....
Ziegler’s co-star Kate Hudson, who stars as a recovering drug addict and dealer in the film and is now a Golden Globe nominee for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, spoke with Jimmy Kimmel on Friday about the backlash to the movies. It’s also up for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, which has generated controversy as the movie has seen staggeringly low reviews. “I think when people see the film, you know that they will see the amount of love and sensitivity that was put into it,” Hudson said....
At Netflix, the breakout original “The Royal Treatment” hit #1 its first day Friday and has maintained it since. It costars Mena Massoud in his first significant role since he played Aladdin in Disney’s 2019 live-action smash. (Back then, $338 million domestic was only good enough for #8 film of the year). He plays a prince in this fanciful rom-com who falls for a New York hairdresser sent in for his arranged wedding....
Davidson said he’s “just happy I’m no longer the first thing people think of when they say what’s the worst thing about Staten Island.” He noted that “the bar, shockingly, is in a neighborhood with the second highest COVID infections in all of New York. So the rule is that they’re supposed to let people eat or drink outside and the owner said no one wants to do that, because they’ll go out of business....
