Month: May 2021

The Humane Society International’s #SaveRalphCampaign tackles the disturbing issue of animal testing. Directed by Spencer Susser, the short film “Save Ralph” features the voices of Taika Waititi, Ricky Gervais, Zac Efron and Olivia Munn. It shines a light on the plight of countless rabbits and other animals suffering at this very moment in laboratories around
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In today’s Global Bulletin, Sky Cinema’s “The Amazing Maurice” rounds out its voice cast; the BFI launches a U.S. streaming platform for British cinema and renews its Bursary Award partnership with IWC Schaffhausen; and the Göteborg Film Festival announces funding for films from four territories where freedom of speech and expression are seen as being
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Gilda Radner was worried no one would remember her. In 1988, as she grappled with ovarian cancer, Radner’s longtime friend and collaborator Alan Zweibel was persuading her to do a guest shot on his Showtime series “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” one night as they walked along the sand in Santa Monica. Radner was hesitant. The
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Ashe is a remarkably talented 28-year-old Californian singer-songwriter with melodies that skip from childlike simplicity to sophisticated complexity from one line to the next. The touchpoints in her music range from classic (Carole King, Brian Wilson, Abba) to contemporary (Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves), but there’s sometimes a “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”-like touch of music hall —
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The Muppets are ghosting Disney Plus, and it’s a good thing: Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Pepe the King Prawn and the rest of the puppet pals will star in their first-ever Halloween special “Muppets Haunted Mansion,” dropping this autumn exclusively on Disney Plus. The special promises to feature a star-studded Muppets cast, likely
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A clever example of creativity thriving within the strict protocols of the coronavirus pandemic, tense confinement thriller “Oxygen” plays like “Buried” in outer space: a ticking-clock sci-fi survival drama centered on a single character (“Inglourious Basterds” star Mélanie Laurent) trapped in a spiffy, coffin-like cryochamber with critically low reserves of breathable air. The blank-brained “bioform”
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Channel 4 has come full circle with its catfishing reality hit. “The Circle” will come to an end after three seasons. A spokesperson for the U.K. broadcaster told Variety, “‘The Circle’ has been a huge hit for young audiences and has grown successively over three seasons on Channel 4, consistently outperforming slot averages. We’re incredibly
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Producer-director Margaret Byrne is developing an eight-part docuseries, “Fighting Time,” following a retired homicide detective and dozens of Latino and Black men who allege they were framed for murder, Variety has learned exclusively. Byrne’s latest feature, “Any Given Day,” screens this week in the International Spectrum competition at Hot Docs. The Chicago-born multi-hyphenate has spent
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Embattled British star Noel Clarke has been accused of misbehavior of the sets of BBC’s flagship show “Doctor Who” — the program that helped turn him into a household name in the U.K. “Several sources came forward to allege they were sexually harassed or inappropriately touched by the actor on a flagship show, ‘Doctor Who,’”
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“Economic inequality” is a phrase that not long ago was seldom heard outside various ivory towers. But in recent years, the proliferation of billionaires, contrasting shrinkage of the middle class and livable wages, not to mention Big Money’s ever-increasing political clout, have all dragged that concept into popular awareness. Conservatives have fought back by renewed
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Since we’ve already had faith-based features involving football (“Woodlawn,” “Facing the Giants”), baseball (“Where Hope Grows”), basketball (“Slamma Jamma”), boxing (“Carman: The Champion”), competitive skateboarding (“Hardflip”) and even mixed martial arts (“The Fight Within”), it was doubtless inevitable that someone would produce a movie where the Lord works in mysterious ways on the golf course.
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Huayi Brothers, China’s longest-standing privately-owned film studio, has notched its third consecutive year of losses despite producing the world’s highest grossing film in 2020, its annual report showed. The company’s revenues for 2020 fell by 33% year-on-year to $232 million (RMB1.5 billion) while net losses hit $162 million (RMB1.05 billion). The figures continue a losing
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Overlong and erratically paced, Brendan Kyle Cochrane’s New York City-based “Equal Standard” opens with a self-conscious scene that heavy-handedly hints at an impending tragedy. There in the sun-dappled kitchen of the happy Jones family, Detective Chris (Tobias Truvillion), Sergeant Jackie (Syleena Johnson) and their adorable daughter lovingly go about their rosy morning routine, while an
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The 1978 theft of Charlie Chaplin’s coffin from its rural Swiss resting place was the kind of bizarre case — equal parts absurd caper and poignant story of human desperation, escalating wildly and ending with peace restored — that you’d expect to have been the subject of at least one hefty true-crime movie. Instead, it
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