Alec Baldwin has told US broadcaster ABC that he did not fire the gun that killed a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust.”
“Well, the trigger wasn’t pulled. I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said in an interview to be aired on Thursday. The actor could be seen breaking down in tears in an excerpt released ahead of the broadcast.
Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins died on the set of the Western
On October 21, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed and director Joel Souza was wounded on the set of the Western movie Baldwin was making near Santa Fe. Baldwin had previously called the incident a “tragic accident.”
How did live bullets end up on set?
When asked by ABC how a live round ended up on set, Baldwin said: “I have no idea. Someone put a live bullet in a gun, a bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”
Armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has also said she had “no idea” why live bullets were present.
On Tuesday, investigators said an Arizona weapon rental supplier may have provided “reloaded ammunition” that matched the cartridge suspected to have contained the live round that killed Hutchins. Reloaded ammunition is made up of recycled parts, including bullets.
No charges filed
The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department said on Wednesday that it had no comment on Baldwin’s interview statements. Investigators say it is too early to determine whether criminal charges will be filed.
Two crew members have filed civil lawsuits accusing Baldwin, the producers of the film and others on the production of negligence and lax safety protocols. Some staff had earlier complained about difficult working conditions, leading to a walk off from set.
The producers have said that they are conducting their own internal investigation.
Baldwin, who was also to star in the film, was one of the producers of the low-budget Western.
Of course, we’ve already been accused of killing the movie business. And, to be fair, we’ve done our best to hobble the theatrical experience. We are the generation that invented “Netflix and chill,” after all. We were the early adopters of streaming and binge-watching, raised in a world where DVRs radically transformed how, and how swiftly, programming could be consumed. But a new Harris Poll of 2,022 adults conducted Nov. 5-7 shows that, before the pandemic, those ages 25-to-40 were the group most likely to go to the movies.
The first Star Wars spinoff movie since Solo: A Star Wars Story was set to hit theaters in 2023 in the form of Rogue Squadron, a tale of the galaxy far far away’s most elite fighter pilots helmed by Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins. Now, the Rogues have been grounded… and it’s going to take a while for us to see when they might just get to take flight again.
The Hollywood Reporter has word that Jenkins, tied up in other movie commitments—including the third Wonder Woman at Warner Bros. and a Cleopatra project for paramount—has been forced to delay plans for her Star Wars movie with writer Matthew Robinson. It was set to enter pre-production late this year ahead of filming in 2022. While the movie will no longer release in 2023 and Disney/Lucasfilm has pulled it from its future schedule, THR notes that Rogue Squadron isn’t off the cards altogether, and there is hope that once Jenkins’ slate of future projects has lightened, she’ll be able to head to the galaxy far, far away.
First announced at Disney’s Investor Day conference last year, Rogue Squadron would’ve been the first Star Wars movie since the conclusion of the “Skywalker Saga” in The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, and part of a long line of future projects Lucasfilm has planned for both streaming and theatrical Star Wars projects on Disney+. There’s of course the return of The Mandalorian for a third season, as well as the upcoming spinoff The Book of Boba Fett, and several future limited series: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka, and Andor.
Theatrically much of Lucasfilm’s future Star Wars slate remains unknown in the wake of Rogue Squadron’s delay—the only other currently announced projects include a Taika Waititi Star Wars film, and Rian Johnson’s purported trilogy of Star Wars films, which have somehow managed to survive years of silence without being scrapped, at least. Lucasfilm has previously also suggested that it is considering a film set in the Knights of the Old Republic time period, a now-mostly non-canonical imagining of the Republic and Sith Empire’s conflicts thousands of years before the mainline movies, but nothing has been officially confirmed.
No doubt we’ll learn a few more things about the cinematic future of Star Wars, streaming or otherwise, soon—Lucasfilm is set to reveal more news about upcoming projects on November 12, as part of “Disney+ Day” celebrations marking the anniversary of the streaming service.
Turn up the volume The latest AirPods 3 and Pro are on sale, but Apple’s 2nd Generation AirPods—though getting older by the day—bring the heat with a 37% discount.
The body count is enormous, and a BUNCH of main characters die.
Captain Boomerang, TDK, Weasel*, Blackguard, Mongal, and Javelin are all dead in the first 12 minutes, quickly followed by Savant, whose head is exploded by Waller when he tries to run away. Rick Flag and Polka-Dot Man also die near the end of the movie. In the 2016 movie, only Slipknot and Diablo die.
*Weasel appeared to drown at the very beginning of the movie, but he actually survived and no one knows. Long live Weasel!
Chimbudeven’s Kasada Tabara begins with a couple of definitions. One: the vantage point, a position from which something is viewed (a change in this can drastically alter one’s view). Two: the butterfly effect, the phenomenon whereby a small change can have dire far-reaching consequences elsewhere (you must have heard of this in Dasavatharam or The Butterfly Effect movie itself). Both these concepts aren’t new to cinema; not even to Tamil cinema.
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We know from the trailer and interviews that Kasada… is a hyperlink film, i.e. the characters inhabit separate stories that are connected. This format too isn’t new. Chimbudeven himself admitted this in his interview with The Hindu: “Thiruvilayadal (1965) is a hyperlink subject, with Lord Shiva being the common link. My film has six episodes that are connected in some way.”
What’s interesting —and kind of unusual for Tamil cinema — is that each of the film’s six segments has a different editor (Anthony, Praveen KL, Vivek Harshan, Mu Kasi Viswanathan, Raja Mohammad, and Ruben), cinematographer (Vijay Milton, MS Prabhu, Balasubramaniem, SR Kathir, RD Rajasekhar, and Sakthi Saravanan), and composer (Yuvan Shankar Raja, Premji Amaren, Sam CS, Sean Roldan, Santhosh Narayanan, and Ghibran).
Chimbudeven’s idea probably was to stitch together different pieces of cloth into an exquisite costume with the help of several tailors. The result, however, is a chaotic patchwork.
A mishmash of elements
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is another hyperlink film that begins with a definition. Much like the cult classic, Kasada… too has an assortment of intriguing characters: there’s a God, a don, a conman, a police officer with a no-kill policy, and others. There are encounters, betrayals, romances, and near-death scenarios. Despite all these, the film rarely intrigues.
The prime suspect is the writing. Neither the situations nor the dialogues pique our curiosity (there are a few exceptions like Sendrayan’s character describing chicken clear soup as kozhi moothram). Take the first segment of the film, for instance. Bala (Premji Amaren) is a God-fearing, quintessential nice guy. One of the ways the film establishes his niceness is by making him feed stray puppies. A snarky front-rower in the cinema would have quipped, “Idhellaam naangaAasai laye paathutom!”
Chimbudeven has also intentionally veered away from comedy, which is actually his forte. But even the few jokes fail to tickle. Case in point: A junior police officer tells his superior that he is coming from a temple. The superior appreciates him and ends his reply with, “So sweet!” Junior officer: “Aama sir, pongal eppavume sweet ah dhaan irukum..”
Is this the same guy who wrote Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi?
The problem is that even the serious moments don’t quite work. Thiripura Shanmuga Sundari aka Trisha (Regina Cassandra), the girl who likes Bala, has an epiphany just because he tells her about a Shiva annan, who owns a beeda stall beside a luxury hotel. Trisha, within seconds, changes her mind from idolising the luxury hotel’s owner, because Bala tells him the beeda stall owner is leading a content life.
These far-too-convenient life-altering realisations occur more than once. Sampath Raj, who plays a don, is shown feeling bad for a guy who kept a knife against his neck, just because another character tells him he’s a do-gooder. Upon overhearing his son’s (Shantanu Bhagyaraj) disappointment with his activities, he decides to give up his life of crime. That the scene is somewhat convincing, is due to Sampath’s performance.
Some of the actors from the sprawling cast (including Sundeep Kishan, Harish Kalyan, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Venkat Prabhu, Vijayalakshmi, and Sija Rose) make their characters look more interesting than they are on paper. But the writing falls flat. Too often, they are seen mouthing expository lines (the segment with Harish Kalyan can be called Enai Noki Paayum Voiceover) or philosophy (the characters quote Bhagavad Gita and so on).
The last high-profile hyperlink film in Tamil cinema, Super Deluxe, also got philosophical, but only after taking us on a dazzling ride. Kasada… meanwhile, feels like a stuttering ride in an old car with mostly boring songs playing on the radio.
When Rita Moreno starred as Anita in West Side Story, the 1961 movie in which half of the characters are Puerto Rican, she was the only Latino performer among the cast.
Still, she — and her white colleagues — were made to wear makeup that darkened their skin.
It was a common practice back then. But in the 60 years since, Moreno says Latino representation in film and television “hasn’t changed anywhere near enough.”
“In some respects it has gotten better,” she told CBC News. “In some respects, it’s pretty much the same … I think we’re represented so poorly in films and television.”
Director Steven Spielberg says he wanted to cast his version, in theatres now, more “authentically” — to make sure the actors playing the famed musical’s Puerto Rican teens “were 100 per cent Latinx and young.”
Like the original, his version is based on the 1957 stage musical by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein, recounting the forbidden romance of Tony, an American boy, and Maria, a Puerto Rican girl, in 1950s New York City. Their affair is complicated by allegiances to rival teenage gangs: the Puerto Rican “Sharks” and the white American “Jets.”
David Alvarez portrays Bernardo Vasquez. The Cuban-Canadian actor says there is ‘so much pride’ in the new adaptation of the 1961 classic. (20th Century Studios/AP)
Moreno, now 89, takes on a new role as Valentina, a scene-stealing shopkeeper.
One expert says that Latino performers have been overlooked and stereotyped by Hollywood for years. The old West Side Story was no exception.
It “looks really weird to us today because we see that, and [we think], ‘What is that?’ and, ‘Why does [Moreno] have so much makeup?'” said Charles Ramírez Berg, a professor of film studies at the University of Texas at Austin and an expert on Latinos in American cinema.
“Back in 1961, that was just the convention and that was just how movies were made.”
A new generation of Latino triple threats — all actors, dancers and singers — emerge in Spielberg’s adaptation. One is Canada’s David Alvarez, who plays Shark leader Bernardo, a role originally portrayed by Greek actor George Chakiris.
WATCH | Moreno discusses both West Side Story films:
Alvarez, who is of Cuban descent, says while he loves the original, it’s not without its shortcomings.
“The only thing that I wish had been the case is that the old movie represented the Latin community a little better,” Alvarez said. That’s why there is “so much pride” behind this new film, he added.
“My parents struggled so much to try and give me a better life,” said Alvarez, whose parents moved from Cuba to Canada during the 1990s.
“It makes me so happy that not only my parents get to see it, but just a whole entire community who understand the struggle that Bernardo, Anita and Maria go through.”
Another change: Spielberg’s West Side Story forgoes subtitles when characters are speaking Spanish.
“I felt that subtitling the Spanish would have been disrespectful to the second language in this country, and that it would immediately make English the dominant language,” Spielberg said in an interview with Digital Spy, a British entertainment website.
DeBose, left, director Steven Spielberg and Rachel Zegler attend the premiere at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center on Nov. 29 in New York. Zegler plays Maria in the new film. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
“It was out of complete respect, and to give the dignity where dignity is earned and deserved to be given.”
Alvarez says understanding Spanish-language scenes is a matter of context, not linguistics.
“All you’ve got to do is look at how it’s being said. How am I saying it? Am I kissing Anita when I’m saying it? If I’m kissing Anita … maybe I’m saying something flirty.”
Audiences have increasingly pushed back against film and television that, when casting within a particular ethnicity, favour light-skinned performers, shutting darker-skinned talent out of roles.
By contrast, 2021’s West Side Story has been lauded for casting Afro-Latino performers, including breakout star Ariana DeBose, who portrays Anita — the same character Moreno was made to darken her skin for in 1961.
Ethnic representation on the screen is never perfect, says Ramírez Berg. But these days “it’s much better.”
“People are thinking and kind of expanding their cinematic view of stories that can be told, of characters that can hold our attention for a film, and actors who could play those characters.”
Rita Moreno stars as Valentina in Spielberg’s adaptation. In the 1961 original, she portrayed Anita, the close friend of romantic lead Maria and was the only actor of Puerto Rican descent. (Niko Tavernise/20th Century Studios/AP)
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“It took my son, and I’ve been fighting him ever since.” Vertical Ent. has released an official trailer for The Devil Below, a new horror film (formerly titled Shookum Hills) from filmmaker / VFX supervisor Brad Parker (director of the very creepy Chernobyl Diaries previously). A geological expedition to an Appalachian sinkhole becomes a fight for survival against a mysterious force. When a team of researchers try to find out how fires started in underground coal mines that have been ablaze for decades, they encounter something much more frightening hiding within. The film stars Alicia Sanz, Adan Canto, Zach Avery, Chinaza Uche, Jesse Latourette, Jonathan Sadowski, and Will Patton. The best part about this is definitely the grizzled Will Patton. It looks a bit like Tremors meets The Descent, which is kind of a thrilling mash-up.
Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Brad Parker’s The Devil Below, direct from Vertical’s YouTube:
There is an abandoned place nestled deep in Appalachian country where underground coal mines have been ablaze for decades. When a team of researchers try to find out how the fires started, they discover something much more startling than the mystery that sent them there: they’re not alone.The Devil Below, formerly known as Shookum Hills, is directed by American filmmaker Bradley Parker, a VFX supervisor and the director of the film Chernobyl Diaries previously. The screenplay is written by Stefan Jaworski and Eric Scherbarth. It’s produced by Julio Hallivis, Diego Hallivis, Andres Rosende, Alejandro de Leon. Vertical Ent. will debut Parker’s The Devil Below in select theaters + on VOD starting March 5th, 2021 this winter.
I don’t know how either of them is even in the running for that promotion when they spend all their time trying to one-up each other with how mean, annoying, and distracting they can be. Like, when are they even working?? I digress.
