Top news

TV writer Marc Wilmore who is known for his work on F Is For Family and In Living Color died on January 30 after complications with Covid. He was 57. Comedian, producer and talk show host Larry Wilmore confirmed the death of his brother and paid tribute to him on Twitter. “My sweet sweet brother, Marc Edward Wilmore, passed […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3j33bVI

Tom Llamas signed off from ABC News on Sunday, after serving as weekend anchor of World News Tonight, amid reports that he will land at NBC News. “This will be my last broadcast at ABC News,” Llamas said on Sunday’s broadcast. “So first, thank you. Over the years it has been a pleasure spending the […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3tfCj9S

During Color of Change’s Sundance panel “Looking Forward: The Future of Crime Television”, Terence Paul Winter, executive producer & writer of The Rookie; Sunil Nayar, former writer/showrunner of All Rise; and Melody Cooper, writer & story editor of Law & Order SVU unpacked a topic that is impacting storytelling on television more now than ever: the portrayal […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/2YvhlWr

The Zaatari refugee camp in Northern Jordan, home to the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, sits on a rocky patch of soil, surrounded by barbed wire. When filmmaker Ali El Arabi traveled there to do some reportage for the UN and the Arab League, he found people poor in opportunities, yet “very […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3aikSwJ

“I’m here because I choose to be.” So says Edee ( Robin Wright ) after she’s been resuscitated from near-death in a secluded cabin tucked away in the Rocky Mountains. As Land begins, we see Edee come to the cabin under somewhat mysterious circumstances: she throws her cell phone in a trash can, and once she’s moved-in she pays someone to come haul her car away so she has no real way to leave without getting lost wandering in all that wilderness. The cabin rests on the edge of a hill and has quite the view – all sprawling mountains blanketed with green and capped with snow. It’s a peaceful place – in theory. But Edee is not used to living like this, and though she came prepared with canned food and other essentials, it doesn’t take long before she’s in mortal danger. What brought Edee here? And did she come out here to die? She’s haunted by flashes of her past – images of a silent husband and son who are always out of reach; memories of hopeless, tear-inducing fights with her sister

Documentaries like I Am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story and Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey have already dug into a couple slices of the magic that makes Sesame Street so beloved by children and adults alike. Now Marilyn Agrelo ‘s new film Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (inspired by Michael Davis’ book of the same name ) goes back to the origins of the groundbreaking series created by producer Joan Ganz Cooney and writer/director Jon Stone , and shines a light on the hurdles, milestones, and memorable moments that have turned Sesame Street into a worldwide sensation beloved by millions. Sesame Street has been a staple of childhoods for 50 years. But before the educational television series from the Children’s Television Workshop came along, the entertainment available to children was nothing more than junk food programming meant to sell toys and candy. That’s where Joan Ganz Cooney comes into play, who realized that television could be used to educate kids instea

NEON has made its second acquisition of the Sundance Film Festival with Jamila Wignot’s Ailey, about dance legend Alvin Ailey. The film debuted at the festival yesterday in the U.S. Documentary Competition section. The documentary explores Ailey’s life and his connection to the present dance company that bears his name with never-before-heard audio interviews recorded […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3aiXf76

EXCLUSIVE: Following one of the craziest weeks in Wall Street history, Hollywood already has its sights set on the wild story with a familiar face looking to tell it. Sources tell Deadline that following a competitive situation, MGM has acquired the book proposal The Antisocial Network from New York Times best-selling author Ben Mezrich, which […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3pDKn1P

One of the most anticipated movies of 2021 is undoubtedly the return of The Matrix franchise. Referred to as The Matrix 4 ever since the project was announced, fans have been waiting to hear what the new movie might be called. The HBO Max teasers for the same-day premieres Warner Bros. Pictures is trying out with all their release this year made it seem as if the movie could be going with the clean simple title of Matrix , but now it appears that we may have the official title. Fans on Reddit and Twitter grabbed a screenshot of an alleged Instagram post from one of The Matrix 4’s hairstylists. The post has since been deleted, but the screenshot in question features a wrap gift with a card that refers to the film by the title Matrix Resurrections . The Title certainly fits the style of the previous sequels, The Matrix Relaoded and The Matrix Revolutions . However, it should be noted that “The” doesn’t appear before the title on the card. Perhaps they’ve followed the advice of F

“Mary, Alpha, Yankee, Delta, Alpha, Yankee…” a woman’s voice lazily repeats over radio static, as a man parachutes from a helicopter amid a freak storm. That refrain echoes throughout Karen Cinorre ‘s surreal drama: “Mayday, mayday” the woman calls, not appearing to need much help at all. But Mayday is very much about women in need. Women who have taken sanctuary in a dreamlike fantasy world eternally at war, luring men to their deaths with their distress calls like some kind of post-modern siren. Writer and director Cinorre, in her stunning feature directorial debut, has crafted an eerie distorted Peter Pan fable out of a fantasy of a women’s world, which pokes at the fragile barrier between life and death. It’s in this strange Neverland where Grace Van Patten’s Ana finds herself after a short circuit at her workplace lands her on this nameless island, washing up on shore with no memory of what happened before. We only get fractured glimpses of Ana’s previous life too, and it’s

Hole-y sh*t , indeed. (Let's just get that pun out of the way.) John and the Hole is, in my opinion, one of the finest films premiering at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It's divisive in the best of ways. The film is based around a seriously messed up concept that is meant to be provocative and unsettling, and yet still be compelling in a very cinematic way. It's not at all what I expected (an indie Home Alone re-imagination) instead it's a very dark parable that acts as a metaphor for about 100 different things in society. My theory as to what it means is only what first came to my mind watching, and others will find more connections and references in it. Which is the mark of something brilliant - not only is it oddly alluring to watch, even though you hate what's going on, but in the search for meaning I found so much nuance buried within the frames. John and the Hole is essentially: Yorgos Lanthimos presents John is a Really Fucked Up Kid . Written by Nic

Fran Kranz made a breakthrough performance as the amusing stoner in the meta horror movie Cabin in the Woods . Now a new chapter in Kranz’s career has triumphantly begun with his quiet, confident, and devastating feature writing and directorial debut Mass . Mass takes its time digging into intimate drama, slowly ramping up its tension and trepidation. But as the story unfolds across pages of gut-wrenching, emotional dialogue, four parents confront the trauma and grief of the tragedy that connects each of their kids and upended all of their lives. The first 15 minutes of Mass follows an eager-to-please, kind red-haired woman as she’s preparing a room inside of an Episcopal church for some kind of meeting. She’s meticulous about making sure everything is perfectly comfortable, and the careful planning becomes even more particular when some kind of mediator comes in to inspect where the meeting will be taking place. It might seem like pointless tire-spinning, but it all makes sense

Refresh for more analysis and Top 10 chart: If you’re looking for any exciting financial action to come out of the movie business, it’s not at the box office, but the stock exchange. The continued closure of movie theaters during Covid, with only 45% of all 5,8K U.S. and Canada movie theaters opened, yielded Warner […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/2McEkTH

At a virtual ceremony, Natalie Qasabian was awarded the 2021 Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Producers Award for Fiction Filmmaking  for her film, Run. The awards honor bold vision and a commitment to continuing work as a creative producer in the independent space. Qasabian’s husband/partner Sev Ohanian won the award two years ago for his work on Searching, which […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/2Yt3cJa

Werewolf stories frequently involve allegorical explorations of the duality of man: the clash between the “civilized” surface layer and the violent beast within. But unlike so many other films in this genre, writer/director  Sean Ellis ‘s new werewolf thriller  Eight for Silver  does not fixate on a gruesome physical transformation to illustrate that duality. Instead, Ellis deploys the werewolf as a roaming specter hellbent on revenge – and in this film, innocent people are forced to suffer for the sins of their elders. Primarily set in the late 1800s during a cholera epidemic (which obviously adds an extra layer of timeliness), the majority of the story centers on the wealthy Laurent family, who live in an isolated manor in the English countryside where the skies are always gray and a thin layer of fog never seems to fully dissipate. The patriarch, Seamus ( Alistair Petrie ), has a frosty relationship with his wife Isabelle ( Kelly Reilly ), and is more concerned about his business

For job seekers in El Paso, Texas, one well-paid option is in law enforcement. The city sits on the U.S.-Mexico border and teems with officers from the border patrol, ICE, DEA, the Texas state police, the local police department and sheriff’s department. Plus there’s the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/36ptEaY

Shaq, a handsome 24-year-old, stares down the camera lens, grunting his approval or dismissal as he scrolls through online dating profiles. A friend sits nearby, looking over Shaq’s shoulder and offering occasional commentary: a raised eyebrow, a suggestion of approval. Shaq explains to an off-camera voice that he’s trying to get back in the dating game, has had his heart broken multiple times, and is now just looking for a good time. Someone once said that the best special effect in movies is simply the human face. Never has that sentiment been more true than in Searchers , a new documentary about online dating in New York City. Director Pacho Velez puts human faces in the center of nearly every frame of his film, creating a set up in which he projects the dating apps of his subjects onto the camera, resulting in people looking straight down the barrel of the lens at the audience as they swipe left or right on potential matches. It’s a film about dating that practically puts us int

The presumed dead-and-buried practice of racial passing by light-skinned blacks in the United States decades ago is returned to center-stage in Passing, a delicate, sensitive, intentionally claustrophobic and not entirely limber directorial debut from the protean British stage performer Rebecca Hall. Based on the recently resurrected 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, which was a modest […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3r7xOMv

A one and a half-hour gut-punch,  Coming Home in the Dark is bleak, tense, and often unshakable. It sticks with you; haunts you. Leaves you feeling restless. Anxiety-inducing and frequently unpleasant, it travels down dark roads, and while you can likely guess the destination, getting there is no less unnerving. In James Ashcroft ‘s film, a family trip to the picturesque, and remote, New Zealand coastline turns deadly and spirals out of control into one very long night. You won’t exactly  enjoy this movie, but you might very well be awed by its emotional power. Right before the chaos truly begins in Coming Home in the Dark , a character nonchalantly says, “When you look back, this will be the moment you’ll wish you’d done something.” Those words become haunting in the immediate moments that follow, and hang over the entire film – a chilling reminder that maybe all of this could’ve been avoided, and less blood could’ve been spilled, if just one tiny thing had gone slightly differen

Vice is launching its own online documentary film festival with 11 feature-docs curated by the company’s co-founder Suroosh Alvi. The youth-skewing media company is launching a microsite to house the films, which includes a number of Oscar contenders, with each film featuring a Q&A with Alvi and the filmmakers and subjects. The films are The […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3anFqE3

Taking inspiration from HBO’s The Undoing, which opens with a theme song performed by star Nicole Kidman, Saturday Night Live envisioned opening credits songs for some other hugely popular shows as sung by their stars. They include Netflix’s Bridgerton, The Queen’s Gambit, Stranger Things and The Queen, The Office (now on Peacock), HBO’s The Succession […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3cqhanf

Saturday Night Live fans took to Twitter tonight to rejoice over the return of longtime cast member Aidy Bryant. She had been absent from the show since mid-October, filming the third and final season of her Hulu comedy series Shrill. Bryant was back on SNL for the sketch program’s first 2021 show, hosted by John […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3crCybR

Saturday Night Live celebrated the late Cicely Tyson during the closing of its first show of 2021. After Krasinski and Chloe Fineman performed their final skit of the evening (a version of Disney’s Ratatouille with an adult spin), the NBC sketch show displayed an SNL title card featuring the trailblazing, Oscar-nominated actress, who hosted on […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3r5rYv3

A number of notable events transpired since the last Saturday Night Live Episode – from the violent attacks on the U.S. Capitol to the release of Netflix’s Pretend It’s A City – and Weekend Update hosts Michael Che and Collin Jost recapped it all. Largely missing mentions of former president Donald Trump, Saturday’s Weekend Update […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3cn9KkR

The first Saturday Night Live cold open of 2021 featured Cecily Strong as Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon adherent-turned-congresswoman whose conspiracy theorizing has become a source of endless media fascination. The set up was Greene guesting on a talk show, What Still Works, with the host (Kate McKinnon) asking her, “What are some of the […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/2Yx6VoY

John Krasinski kicked off the first Saturday Night Live of 2021 attempting to move on past his reputation as The Office‘s Jim. While the role on the NBC comedy launched Krasinski into stardom, it seems to have followed him all the way to the Studio 8H stage, where he made his hosting debut. He started […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/36qVow3

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up Clint Bentley’s Jockey on the second night of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, acquiring all worldwide rights to the film. Set to premiere on Sunday, Jan. 31 in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section, Bentley’s film follows an aging jockey (Clifton Collins, Jr.) who hopes to win one last title […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/3afNve0

On the heels of a successful Netflix debut, Bridgerton has taken over TikTok thanks to the skills of two musically-inclined creators. TikTok users and Bridgerton: The Musical creators Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear spoke to Today about how their social media show came together. “We were obsessed with the show. Who doesn’t love it? There’s so […] from Deadline https://ift.tt/2Yvsir2

Despite having a career that spans over 50 years and 25 albums, there’s a decent chance you’ve never heard of Sparks . However, the pop rock duo comprised of Ron and Russell Mael and an ever-changing band behind them have undoubtedly influenced many of the synth-pop, new wave, post-punk, and alternative musicians you’ve loved over the years. Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Nirvana, Beck, Franz Ferdinand, and even “Weird Al” Yankovic have all been touched by Sparks, and in the enlightening,  woderfully playful documentary The Sparks Brothers , director Edgar Wright ( Shaun of the Dead , Baby Driver ) wants to make sure you are too. The Sparks Brothers kicks off with a wave of praise and reverence from the likes of Mike Myers , Beck , Fred Armisen , “Weird Al” Yankovic , Alex Kaprano s of Franz Ferdinand, Todd Rundgren , Jason Schwartzman , Patton Oswalt , Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many more familiar faces and names. But all of these people already know and love Sparks. For eve