Month: September 2020

The raw heat that comes off of “Nick Cordero: Live Your Life: Live at Feinstein’s/54 Below” makes the loss of the vocalist-actor known for awe-inducing Broadway roles in “Waitress,” “A Bronx Tale” and “Bullets Over Broadway” feel devastating all over again, although the shock has hardly worn off since he died in July after a
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The hearty applause from European journalists at the end of Woody Allen’s online/on-site press conference for “Rifkin’s Festival,” which world premiered on Friday at the San Sebastian Festival, was probably as much for Allen’s career at large as his latest movie in particular. Opening the festival, and set at the San Sebastian Festival – with
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Mort Rifkin, the ostensible novelist at the center of “Rifkin’s Festival,” has longterm writer’s block, and it’s hard to imagine that Woody Allen has ever empathized less with a character. Where Mort believes it’s futile to write if the finished work is not going to be on the level of Dostoevsky, the 84-year-old Allen continues
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David Oyelowo and director Nate Parker are collaborating again on the drama “Solitary.” The film also stars Olivia Washington, Barry Pepper and Jimmie Fails. Oyelowo will play a wrongfully imprisoned man who’s been released after seven years of solitary confinement. Washington will portray his fiancé. Production starts next week in Vancouver for Bron Studios. Parker
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Everyone’s favorite familiar-slash-vampire hunter on FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows” will soon show off his musical side on the small-screen: Harvey Guillén will recur on the second season of NBC’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” Variety has learned exclusively. In the multi-episode arc, Guillén will play George, a new programmer who is constantly looking for
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Alicia Keys spent the first five albums of her career as a sleekly sophisticated singer-songwriter and pianist, crafting anthemic R&B that was often bold but just as often bland. After releasing 2012’s “Girl on Fire,” she grew tired of such perfection, stopped wearing make-up and released “Here,” a raw, unrefined album filled with nervous jazz-R&B-hop
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Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has resigned from her position as the U.K.’s special envoy on media freedom. Clooney’s decision is in protest against the U.K.’s intention to pass the Internal Market Bill that is designed to ensure barrier-free trade between the four U.K. nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after the Brexit
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The new Young Adult book “Devastation Class” is not your average book-to-movie adaptation. When the film rights were snapped up in 2018 to adapt the science fiction book series by Glen Zipper and Elaine Mongeon, the project hadn’t yet found a publisher. A few months later, HarperCollins’ Blink YA Books secured the literary rights. The
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“Harley Quinn” has been renewed for a third season at HBO Max rather than DC Universe. The news comes as Warner Bros. officially announced Friday that DC Universe will no longer be home to scripted original series and will instead transition to solely a comic book subscription service called DC Universe Infinite. “Harley Quinn” is
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On Nov. 27, 1929, three years after Greta Garbo’s American film debut, Variety described her as “the most mysterious of Hollywood stars.” More than 50 years later, in 1981, a Variety story began “Given that Greta Garbo still remains the most elusive, mysterious and speculated about film personality on the planet…” It’s rare for any
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The Black Effect Podcast Network, a joint venture between Charlamagne tha God and iHeartMedia, has made its first executive hire: Dollie S. Bishop, who joins as president of production and creative development. Announced earlier this month and set to launch this fall, the Black Effect Podcast Network is touted as the industry’s biggest podcast publisher
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Sarah Jones (“Marriage Story”), Giovanni Ribisi (“Avatar”) and Alexia Landeau (“Day Out of Days”) have joined the cast of Julie Delpy’s upcoming dramedy series “On the Verge,” a co-production between Canal Plus and Netflix. Canal Plus will air the series in France, with Netflix distributing it in the rest of world. “On The Verge” was
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UPDATED: The dispute between Roku and NBCUniversal over distribution of the fledgling Peacock streaming service has taken a nasty turn. Late Thursday, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal notified Roku that the media company plans to force Roku to pull access to NBCU’s TV Everywhere channels on the Roku platform, including the flagship NBC app. Comcast may require Roku
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European pay-TV operator Sky has greenlit production of Italian prison drama “The King,” toplining Luca Zingaretti, best known as the titular character in the popular “Inspector Montalbano” series. In “The King” Zingaretti will play Buno Testori, chief of the San Michele penitentiary, where “he applies his own personal idea of justice,” according to a Sky
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The U.S. government will prohibit app stores from offering new downloads of TikTok and WeChat, two popular Chinese-owned apps, effective Sunday over the Trump administration’s claims that it wants to prevent the Chinese government from accessing data on Americans. The new rules, issued Friday by the Commerce Department, is pursuant to President Trump’s executive orders
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UPDATED: Michelle Obama is taking over Instagram Live next week — with several celebrity guests — for a seven-and-a-half-hour event urging Americans to register to vote. The Registered and Ready Takeover, organized by the former First Lady’s When We All Vote nonprofit advocacy organization, will take place Tuesday, Sept. 22, which is National Voter Registration
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Spanish producer-distributor and sales agent Filmax will handle international rights on Lara Izagirre’s “Nora,” the film opener at this year’s San Sebastian Zinemira Basque cinema showcase. Selected for San Sebastian’s Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2018, “Nora” is Izagirre’s second feature, following on ”An Autumn Without Berlin,” a Basque homecoming drama which scored a best
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Musician Van Morrison, best known for songs like “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Domino” and “Wild Night,” and for seminal albums “Moondance” and “Astral Weeks,” is set to release three songs protesting the U.K. lockdown. First up is “Born to Be Free,” out Sept. 25, followed by “As I Walked Out” on Oct. 9, and “No More
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