Month: December 2023

Julia Roberts is an icon of the romantic-comedy genre, but there’s one famous rom-com the Oscar-winner happened to turn down: Nora Ephron’s 1998 classic “You’ve Got Mail.” Roberts revealed the scoop during a recent appearance on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live.” Ephron’s film memorably paired Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the story of business

The toxicity of patriarchal masculinity has become such a well-worn trope in pop culture (and especially in recent Colombian cinema) that it’s hard to remember its effects continue unabated in streets and households all over the world, and in that Latin American country specifically. And so, while Fabián Hernández’s central concerns in his simply-titled film,

Shot in dense, high-contrast black and white, writer-director C.J. “Fiery” Obasi’s “Mami Wata,” unspools like a mysterious dream. It’s both inscrutable and hypnotic, delivering indelible images while remaining narratively opaque. Billed as a “West African folklore,” its story could be taken as a straightforward fable about tradition vs. modernity and how power corrupts. But as

Oscar-nominated actor Ryan O’Neal, who came to prominence on TV’s “Peyton Place” and became a top star of the 1970s in films including “Love Story,” “What’s Up, Doc?,” “Paper Moon” and “Barry Lyndon,” died Friday, his son Patrick said on Instagram. He was 82. O’Neal was diagnosed with chronic leukemia in 2001 and with prostate

Netflix‘s board has approved 2024 pay packages of its top execs, with co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters each to receive compensation worth $40 million. For Sarandos, $40 million is the same level of pay he is set to receive in 2023, while Peters is getting a 5% step-up from the $34.65 million in target

It’s impossible to imagine “The Devil Wears Prada” without Meryl Streep‘s icy, Oscar-nominated performance as Miranda Priestly, but it turns out there was initial resistance to casting the acting icon in the 2006 classic. During a recent appearance on the “Hollywood Gold” podcast, producer Wendy Finerman revealed Streep was almost passed over for the role because

Lena Waithe can’t be anymore direct when talking about “A Thousand and One,” writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature film debut. “Films like this oftentimes are not always seen or recognized by the Academy,” says Waithe, a producer on the Sundance Film Festival winner. The film follows Inez (Teyana Taylor), a woman recently released from prison who

A judge on Friday certified a class action lawsuit that alleges that Disney paid 9,000 women less than their male counterparts. The suit is the largest ever certified under California’s Equal Pay Act, which makes it illegal for workers to be paid less for substantially similar work based on their gender. Lori Andrus, the plaintiffs’

Jonathan Majors‘ ex-girlfriend finished her testimony Friday — her fourth day on the witness stand in the “Creed III” actor’s trial for his alleged assault earlier this year. Two more witnesses, including the police officer who arrested Majors in March, also testified. After the defense’s cross-examination on Thursday, Grace Jabbari returned to the stand for

George C. Wolfe has a way with actors, having worked with the best of the best on stage and screen, from the original staging of “Angels in America” to guiding Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis to Oscar noms in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” In his latest film “Rustin,” now playing on Netflix, Wolfe has again

A young boy is fleeing war after his father is killed. All alone in the world, he finds a treasure map that will change his life — and give him the chance to heal from trauma. The plot of “Saleem” — Jordan’s first feature-length animation — is a universal story of the horrors so many

It didn’t take long for America Ferrera to find the personal connection in the speech she delivers as Gloria in the box-office smash “Barbie.” “I think when we’re not historically meant to be in a room, it’s very difficult to show up in those spaces as your whole self,” she says on Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast. “Because

All for one and … two for all? In a bold move, French film studio Pathé (together with partners in Germany, Spain and Belgium) bet nearly $80 million on an all-star, double-barreled adaptation of “The Three Musketeers,” gambling that interest would be high enough that director Martin Bourboulon could split Alexandre Dumas’ swashbuckling epic over

Darren Lynn Bousman is no stranger to taking big risks, having helmed the high-profile sequel to “Saw” in his 20s and directed the flop-turned-cult classic “Repo! The Genetic Opera.” But one phone call would point his life in a completely new direction. “I got a phone call one afternoon from a friend of mine who

At first glance, “Omen” appears to be another entry in the long tradition of immigrant narratives dedicated to the old adage that you can’t go home again. Returning to the country of his birth, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgian resident Koffi (Marc Zinga) finds himself not just a stranger in a strange land,