SZA has released her version of “The Anonymous Ones,” a song that Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Amandla Stenberg wrote for the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. Stenberg’s own performance of the song is featured in the movie. Hear SZA’s “The Anymous Ones” below.
Dear Evan Hansen won the 2017 Tony Award for Best Musical. The new movie was directed by Stephen Chbosky, and stars Ben Platt as Evan Hansen and Amandla Stenberg as Alana Beck.
Read Pitchfork’s new track review of SZA’s “Joni.”
COVID-19 delayed the release of Marvel’s “Black Widow” for more than a year. But this Friday, the wait is over and Natasha Romanoff finally gets her own film on the big screen.
Companion viewing
“Thor Ragnarok” (2017)
“Avengers: Endgame” (2019)
“Captain Marvel” (2019)
Scarlett Johansson first appeared on screen as Natasha Romanoff in Marvel’s “Iron Man 2” more than a decade ago. She was a KGB assassin who defected to the U.S. and eventually became an Avenger. I never read the comics, so I don’t know how she was depicted in print, but on screen, she has mostly been a sidekick and sometimes romantic interest to the male Avengers.
Aired 7/5/21
on KPBS News
Listen to this story by Beth Accomando.
“Black Widow,” marking Johansson’s ninth Marvel appearance, was meant to finally be the character’s chance to shine and get a more solid backstory. The trailer for her standalone film says, “You don’t know anything about me. I’ve lived a lot of lives.”
And she has, but the “Black Widow” film (for which Johansson served as an executive producer) only scratches the surface of Natasha’s many lives. In terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline, “Black Widow” takes place between “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”
“Civil War” was when the Avengers team suffered an internal rift and Black Widow chose to side with Cap, which ultimately forced her to go into exile. So “Black Widow” lets us see what she was up to in the time frame before she rejoins the Avengers for “Infinity War.”
During her “exile,” she ends up reconnecting with her sort of “family,” sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) and her parents (Rachel Weisz and David Harbour). We get a little backstory about her childhood but then the film just hopscotches around without developing any aspect of the storyline in much detail or depth.
Directed by Cate Shortland (who scored an indie hit with “Somersault” in 2004), the film tries to invest Widow’s story with heart and soul as well as jaunty family banter. It partially succeeds. Screenwriter Eric Pearson also wrote “Thor: Ragnarok,” which maintained a delightfully humorous tone, and he mines some humor here as well. But “Black Widow” doesn’t have Taika Waititi at the helm and Shortland can’t make the humor flow as effortlessly. There’s a nice rapport among the “Black Widow” cast but the comedy, with its rapid, overlapping dialogue, feels a bit forced.
“Black Widow” serves up an uneven but fun ride with the action keeping the pace mostly breathless. Florence Pugh, however, steals the show from her onscreen sister, so we’ll be seeing more of her Yelena in the future. But “Black Widow” feels a bit like a missed opportunity since Natasha — SPOILER ALERT if you have not been following along with the MCU — dies in “End Game,” so she won’t be making any more screen appearances where she’d have a chance to shine unless there are more prequels in the works.
Do stick around for the post-credit sequence, and it’s fitting. I think Marvel scored better with its female superhero of Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) than with Black Widow. At least “Captain Marvel” had a more consistent tone holding it together.
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Beth Accomando
Arts Culture Reporter
I cover arts and culture, from Comic-Con to opera, from pop entertainment to fine art, from zombies to Shakespeare. I am interested in going behind the scenes to explore the creative process; seeing how pop culture reflects social issues; and providing a context for art and entertainment.
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In the Halloween franchise, the night “he” came home is usually October 31. This year though, it’s October 15. Universal, Blumhouse, and Miramax just announced that the highly anticipated horror sequel Halloween Kills will debut in your home, if you have the streaming service Peacock, on the same day the film hits theaters.
Way back when the Halloween sequel trilogy—co-written and directed by David Gordon Green, and starring series veteran Jamie Lee Curtis—was announced, this second film was supposed to debut in October 2020. Then, of course, the covid-19 pandemic happened, and to keep the film’s holiday tie-in, Universal bumped both the second and third movies a full year: 2021 for HalloweenKills, 2022 for HalloweenEnds. Since then, things had been cruising along toward a full on theatrical release, just like other major Universal Pictures releases Candyman, F9, and Old had in the previous months. So this is quite the sudden shift.
Ultimately, though, it’s a good thing because anyone who wants to watch it will be able to. Plus, there are a ton of other elements to factor in. Fear and caution surrounding the delta variant, for one. A lack of buzz (and an initially “Rotten” Rotten Tomatoes score) coming off its debut at the Venice Film Festival last week. Plus, this is part two of a trilogy. Halloween Ends, the final piece of the puzzle, will be out October 2022. For that film to be a success, this one has to get eyeballs on it, and putting the film on streaming day and date with theaters will certainly do that.
And while most recent Universal titles have been theatrical only, Universal was also the first studio to skip theaters for a major release with Trolls World Tour last year, and moved another big animated sequel, The Boss Baby: Family Business, to a simultaneous theaterical and Peacock debut earlier this year. So the company has all kinds of data on how these kinds of releases work, and it seems for Halloween Kills this is the right move.
Halloween Killspicks up immediately following the events of the 2018 reboot/sequel Halloween. Laurie Strode (Curtis), her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak) left Michael Myers to die in Laurie’s burning house. This film sees Michael getting out and continuing to kill, so the Strode women bring together the whole town to finally take him down. Which… they won’t. Because there’s a part three next year. But, if you’re interested in seeing what happens, now you can stay inside the house. The opposite of what Michael did.
• Charge your phone and watch simultaneously
• Wide compatibility with phones and watches
• Case friendly
Halloween Kills arrives in theaters and on Peacock October 15.
The Masters of the Universe revival is part of a larger expansion strategy under Mattel’s chief executive, Ynon Kreiz, to dust off aging franchises. “We have a treasure trove of brands, some that were shelved for whatever reason,” said Richard Dickson, the president and chief operating officer of Mattel. Brands that are lined up for expansion include the Magic 8 Ball, the Major Matt Mason action figure and the card game Uno.
Expanding its intellectual properties could make Mattel more profitable at a time when the toy industry is booming. After tumbling 4 percent in 2019, U.S. toy sales jumped 16 percent to $25.1 billion last year, according to the NPD Group, a research firm. Mattel reported a 40 percent increase in net sales in its most recent quarter compared with the same period in 2020.
“Ynon Kreiz changed a lot about the business,” said Gerrick Johnson, an equity research analyst for BMO Capital Markets. “He looked at the profitability of the licenses.” Pulling a brand like Masters of the Universe out of the vault is a smart strategy, he said, because Mattel can turn around and sell licenses for a range of products, like bedsheets and backpacks.
Beyond toys and the series — and a long-gestating movie project — Mattel is lining up partnerships in publishing and in softgoods, which include clothing and bedding, said Mr. Dickson, who declined to provide additional details.
Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s outreach to Muslims during a book launch function in Ghaziabad on Sunday evoked mixed response from Muslim academics and activists. While some found it unprecedented, others termed it an old book in a new cover. However, most of them saw it as an attempt to reshape the RSS’s image according to changing global politics.
“The fact that he accepted that lynching is an Indian reality and that Muslims are at its receiving end is something new,” said Mirza Asmer Baig, professor of political science at Aligarh Muslim University. “Some time back, he said lynching was a foreign concept, alien to India,” he added.
Prof. Baig also pointed to Mr. Bhagwat’s acknowledgement of the need to appreciate the differences in worship and lifestyle of different communities. “Acknowledging the differences is the first step towards accepting the multiculturalism that has defined Indian society for centuries. However, it is like stating the obvious. It is the RSS and its allies that were not accepting this idea of India,” he said.
Hindu audience
He said more than Muslims, Mr Bhagat seemed to be addressing the moderate/liberal Hindu voter who was shifting away from the BJP because of its relentless pursuit of hate politics. “Also, the global realpolitik has changed after the Democrats came to power in the U.S. and the Taliban got into ascendency in Afghanistan,” he said.
On author Khwaja Ifetakhar Ahmad and Mr Bhagwat’s suggestion that Indian Muslim support to Khilafat Movement led to the rise of Hindutva and ultimately led to Partition, Prof. Baig said it was oversimplitifcation of history.
However, Mohammad Sajjad, professor of history at AMU said it was the view of some writers. Citing prominent author Intezar Hussain who migrated to Pakistan after Partition, Prof Sajjad said in one of his works, he noted that Lala Lajpat Rai said that Hindus felt threatened by the whole-hearted support of Muslims to the Khilafat Movement. “However, the word Hindutva was already coined and use of communalism for political benefit was done by Colonial rulers much before the Movement,” he said.
Reminding that RSS leaders often spoke with a forked tongue, Prof. Sajjad underlined that Mr Bhagwat’s remarks will remain mere rhetoric unless the impact is seen on the ground.
Cautious note
“The common Muslim is concerned about his security. Will he impress upon the government to release those Muslims who have been put into jail for North East Delhi riots on flimsy grounds? Will he ask the government to take action against the erring police officers? Will he tell the government to pay substantial compensation to the family of the victim of lynching,” he asked.
Requesting anonymity, a senior faculty from Darul Uloom, Deoband, said, except for the call for starting negotiation between the two communities, there was nothing new in what Mr .Bhagwat said.
“RSS has been reiterating that all Indians have the same DNA. It is their way to call everybody a Hindu. I want to know if they believe that the DNA of the Aryans and the Dravidians is the same,” he said.
On the negotiation part, he said Darul Uloom would soon come up with a response. “However, I must say, the first step towards dialogue was taken by our principal Maulana Arshad Madani in 2019 when he met Mr Bhagwat. It was a great risk because some sections of the community were not in favour of it. For how long you would fight; the global scenario is such that you have to sit across the table and talk.”
Md. Zaheeruddin, an senior social activist from Dasna in Ghaziabad, where a Muslim boy was allegedly beaten up for drinking water in a temple premises, said the speech has come as a relief in the tense environment.
“Conversion has been and will remain an issue. I have no qualms in admitting that we were Brahmins three generations back. We have to get over it. If our DNA is the same, how does it matter? Every year hundreds of people convert to Islam and several Muslims become Hindus. Many of them because of love. Will Mr Bhagwat make the controversial temple priest understand that it is not ‘love jihad’.” he said.
A California movie producer was arrested Thursday on a New York indictment accusing him of using a movie production company to operate an international prostitution business.
Dillon Jordan, 49, of Arrowhead Lake, California, was arrested in San Bernardino County, California. At an initial court appearance in Riverside, California, Jordan appeared by video and was ordered released on $150,000 bail. A message seeking comment was sent to his attorney, Peter Swarth.
“For years, Dillon Jordan operated an extensive and far-reaching prostitution business through two front companies – a purported party and event planning company and an actual movie production company,” U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a release. “Now the party is over and the film is a wrap.”
Producer Dillon D. Jordan arrives for the special screening of “Skin” at the Arclight in Hollywood on July 11, 2019.
ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Jordan is listed among dozens of producers on films including the 2018 film “The Kindergarten Teacher,” which featured Maggie Gyllenhaal, and the 2019 movie “The Kid,” which starred Ethan Hawke. He was also one of the producers on the 2018 movie “Skin,” starring Jamie Bell, according to IMDB.
An indictment said Jordan, from 2010 through May 2017, kept a roster of women who lived across the U.S. and performed sexual acts for Jordan’s clients in exchange for money.
It said he coordinated with a United Kingdom-based madam, sharing and referring customers and prostitutes. The madam was not identified by name in court papers.
Sometimes, the indictment said, Jordan arranged transportation for women to engage in prostitution or directed clients to arrange interstate transportation.
He “disguised the nature of the check payments to the women for their prostitution services by describing them as modeling fees, appearance fees, consulting fees, massage therapy fees, and house party fees, among other things,” according to the indictment.
To communicate with clients, Jordan used email to discuss the price of prostitution services and to arrange transportation, authorities said.
As part of his bail terms, Jordan was ordered not to communicate with any victims or anyone likely to be a witness in the case.
“They haven’t said anyone’s name so I don’t know who any are,” Jordan told Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym.
He was also ordered to surrender his firearms to law enforcement and not to use any drugs or marijuana. His home could also be subject to random searches.
“They’re going to randomly search my house?” Jordan asked. Then he said: “I agree.”
He said his legal name was Dillon Jordan, but the indictment said he also used aliases including “Daniel Jordan,” “Daniel Maurice Hatton,” and “Daniel Bohler.”
He was charged with conspiracy to violate the Mann Act, enticement, money laundering and use of interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity.
FBI Special Agent-in-Charge George M. Crouch Jr. said anyone victimized by Jordan or with additional information should contact the Newark, New Jersey, FBI office.
“This defendant apparently thought he could hide his alleged criminal dealings behind a supposedly legitimate business,” Crouch said. “But the FBI, in its mission to protect our citizens, uses every tool at its disposal to unmask those who violate federal law and assist the impacted victims.”
The film industry is going through a major upheaval at the moment, with the pandemic forcing a reassessment of traditional distribution processes, and both expanding and limiting opportunities in-step, as more people turn to video-on-demand (VOD) platforms instead of traditional cinema releases.
And Facebook looks set to add another wrinkle to this process, with the launch of the first-ever official film premiere on the platform, with documentary feature ‘The Outsider’ to screen on August 19th via a Facebook ticketed event.
“The premiere can be viewed by any Facebook users in countries where Paid Online Events are available. Currently, they are available in more than 100 countries worldwide. Facebook will be providing some paid promotion to help market the event. The tech giant has committed to not taking a cut of any ticketed events or revenue from independent creators until 2023.”
The result of more than two decades of research and filming, “The Outsider” looks at the construction of the 9/11 Museum in Manhattan. The film’s distributors are keen to reach an international audience with the release, and with many traditional cinemas still closed, and more people now tuning in to film and TV shows online, Facebook has become a viable option for the release.
Which could be a precursor to more, similar launches in future, and could provide a new avenue for Facebook video growth.
Facebook has been trying to build its Watch platform for years, with various exclusive shows building an audience, but many others falling flat. Overall, however, video is key to Facebook usage – just last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that video now accounts for almost half of all time spent in the app.
And with more people turning to platforms like Disney+ and Netflix for entertainment, changing the power balance in film distribution, it seems likely that the VOD trend for film distribution will become a mainstay, even once cinemas are able to re-open.
That’s opened up whole new areas of consideration for the industry – which has lead, for example, to Hollywood stars suing production companies over back-end deals based on box office sales. Without traditional cinema releases, the flow of revenue is altered, with money from, say, Disney+ subscriptions going back to Disney itself, as opposed to being more specifically allocated to each release. So while people might view specific movies through that service, they’re not individually paying for tickets, like that would at the movies, which blurs the revenue lines, and complicates contracts.
Those changes, as noted, could end up limiting opportunities for film investment – yet at the same, the expanded access afforded by VOD platforms, including Facebook, can provide whole new distribution tools for smaller production companies, who, as in this case, can use Facebook events to reach broader audiences, and make money from their work.
How much money is the real question. Traditional film distribution deals tend to be very lucrative, well beyond what Facebook events can likely provide. But maybe, it will be enough, and that could provide a lifeline to smaller filmmakers who are looking to find new avenues for their work, as cinema releases shift further towards big-name Blockbusters and guaranteed hits.
Which is why this is an interesting experiment – and if it works out, it could also provide whole new advertising opportunities, tied into premieres and screenings, which could help brands connect with specific audiences.
There’s a lot to play out, but it’s an interesting shift to watch.
Actor Jimmy Sheirgill-led crime thriller movie ”Collar Bomb” will release on streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar on July 9.
According to a press release issued by the streamer, the film will be available for subscribers of Disney+ Hotstar VIP and Disney+ Hotstar Premium exclusively.
Sheirgill, known for starring in acclaimed movies like ”Maachis”, ”A Wednesday”, ”Special 26” and ”Tanu weds Manu”, will be seen essaying the role of a police officer in ”Collar Bomb”. ”When a ticking bomb takes control of his quaint town, officer Manoj Hesi sets out to catch the evil mastermind as he tries to saves hundreds of innocent lives,” the plotline reads. Directed by Dnyanesh Zoting, the film also features actors Asha Negi and Rajshri Deshpande. Nikhil Nair has penned the script. It is produced by Yoodlee Films and 3 Earth Entertainment.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Up until this point, chances are even if you’d heard of and become excited about Edgar Wright’s latest film, Last Night in Soho, you probably don’t know what it’s about. Trailers have shown vague story threads, intriguing trips into the past, and hints at violence. But beyond that, its story has, for the most part, remained a mystery.
Now, with the movie’s release just under two months away, the latest trailer changes that. Or so we think. We still see a modern day fashion student (Jojo Rabbit’s Thomasin McKenzie) dream that she’s back in time in the body of a glamorous performer (The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy) but this time, things go further. Check it out.
Previous trailers have certainly hinted at something nefarious about Matt Smith’s (Doctor Who) character, but here, the trailer strongly suggests he kills Taylor-Joy’s character in the 1960s and McKenzie’s character finds out. Fast-forward to today, Smith’s character is now played by Chancellor Valorum himself, Terrence Stamp, and the young woman is trying to bring a murder to justice decades later.
So is Last Night in Soho about about a ghost contacting a girl through her dreams, to help her bring her murderer to justice? A time travel-ghost story-murder mystery? It sure seems like it. But there’s no way the trailer would show everything and we have to imagine there’s more to it than that. As for what? We’ll find out soon enough.
Last Night in Soho recently had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival where reviews were generally positive. That just gets us more excited to see what the director of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Baby Driver, The Sparks Brothers, and Spaced has ready for audiences next.
• Charge your phone and watch simultaneously
• Wide compatibility with phones and watches
• Case friendly
Co-written by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Last Night in Soho opens in theaters only October 29.
We know the Earth’s imminent destruction by an asteroid can be entertaining or vastly stupid, depending on your feelings about Michael Bay’s 1995 acition/sci-fi/shlock Armageddon. Could the Earth’s destruction by an errant comet be funny? Netflix’s upcoming movie Don’t Look Up is going to give it a try, and by this first trailer, it stands a better chance than Earth does.
Written and directed by Adam McKay of The Big Short and Anchorman fame, Don’t Look Up “tells the story of two low-level astronomers who must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.” Some people are more chill about it than others:
The movie has a truly, absurdly over-talented cast, even excepting its Oscar-winning leads Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawerence. A few of them are blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em in the trailer, but there’s Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Ron Perlman, Arianda Grande, and Meryl Streep (playing the president, of course).
DiCaprio isn’t exactly known for playing meek, nebbish members of the hoi polloi before, but man if the movie hasn’t managed to shlub him down. His depiction of a man having a panic attack—presumably at his discovery of the Earth’s imminent demise—is quite authentic, but it’s also actually a little funny just to see the titular Wolf of Wall Street and Great Gatsby completely overwhelmed by anything, really. Or maybe that’s just me.
Don’t Look Back will premiere on Netflix on December 24, which will presumably make for a unique holiday movie experience. However, the movie will be coming to theaters on December 10, for a limited run that I’m extremely confident exists solely so the movie can be submitted to the Academy Awards. Still, looks good!
