Melvin Van Peebles, the influential filmmaker behind “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song,” and father of director and actor Mario Van Peebles, has died. He was 89. “Dad knew that Black images matter,” Mario Van Peebles said in a statement from the Criterion Collection. “If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?
Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo are joining the cast of the Apple series adaptation of Hugh Howey’s “Wool” novels, Variety has learned. The pair joins previously announced cast members Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Robbins. “Wool” is a set in a ruined and toxic future where a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories
There is an eerie, otherworldly beauty to the opening shot of Kavich Neang’s “White Building.” Accompanied by the pressure-cooker whine that introduces the more uncanny sections of Jean-Charles Bastion’s score, a drone camera, steady as though it were mounted on tracks in the sky, drifts over the eponymous structure, looking down. Even just the rooftop
All awards and nominations lead to the coveted Academy Awards ceremony. As the industry’s leader in awards analysis, predictions and the entertainment business, you can find the key upcoming dates for this year’s awards season. All critical dates are in bold. Oscar nominations will be announced on February 8, 2021, with voting set to take
Two early and critical precursors to the awards season have announced their voting dates and annual galas. First, the National Board of Review will reveal its 2021 honorees on Tuesday, Nov. 30, with their awards presentation and gala scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 11, hosted by NBC News’ Willie Geist. They will be followed by the
One of this year’s favorites to shine in the main competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival is Fernando León de Aranoa’s “The Good Boss,” starring Javier Bardem. “The Good Boss” takes place in and around the Blancos Básculas factory, where all things must be in balance at all times. There, the seemingly benevolent boss,
Joseph Fiennes, Omari Hardwick and Gael Garcia Bernal have joined the cast of “The Mother,” a deadly thriller starring Jennifer Lopez. Paul Raci, who recently landed an Oscar nomination for “Sound of Metal,” and newcomer Lucy Paez (“Silencio”) have also been added to the call sheet of the Netflix film. The movie follows a deadly
For the first time since 2017, CBS has now won both Monday and Tuesday nights of premiere week thanks to the return of its hugely successful “NCIS” and “FBI” franchises. On average, CBS garnered 6.63 million viewers on Tuesday, Sept. 21, and its three-hour window dedicated to the Dick Wolf police procedural trilogy had solid
Owen Wilson, Kim Kardashian, Jason Sudeikis and Rami Malek will host during the next season of “Saturday Night Live,” as the show livestreams on Peacock for the first time. For decades, the traditional home of “Saturday Night Live” has been the NBC broadcast network — after the late local weekend news. As young viewers find
The music of Billie Eilish is coming to Oculus Quest 2 and Rift platforms, with the trailblazing artist releasing a Beat Saber Music Pack that serves up ten of her biggest hits on Sept. 21. A trailer for the Beat Saber pack shows headset-wearing VR users moving to Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever.” After the choreographed
In 2016, Esteban Arango enrolled in Hola Mexico Film Festival’s mentorship program, Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today, with a short film — a coming-of-ager about two brothers from Colombia who love metal music and feel disillusioned by the American dream. Arango and his co-writer, Erick Castrillon, needed guidance on adapting the piece into a full-length project, and
Exactly one week ahead of her next conservatorship hearing, Netflix has released a trailer for its upcoming Britney Spears documentary, which will launch the day before the pop star heads to court. “Britney vs. Spears” will debut on Netflix on Sept. 28. The next day, Sept. 29, marks the most significant court hearing, to date
Brazilian writer-director Anita Rocha de Silveira made a striking feature debut six years ago with “Kill Me Please,” a uniquely antic yet unnerving cocktail of adolescent sexual awakening, giallo thriller elements and art-house ambiguity. Its boldness extends to the slightly bigger canvas and slightly older heroines in “Medusa.” Again offering a queasily satirical take on
Juan Marisé’s “Camionero,” Laura Baumeister’s “Daughter of Rage” and Ion Bors’ “Carbon” triumphed Wednesday at San Sebastian Festival’s prize ceremony for winners at its main industry competitions: the Europe-Latin America Co-production Forum and WIP Latin America and WIP Europa pix-in-post showcases. Also among victors were Juan Andrés Arango’s “Where the River Begins,” María Zanetti’s “Alemania,”
HBO Max ordered an adaptation of “Station Eleven” in June 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic began to sweep the globe. But the series will soon launch in a world in which the pandemic is still ongoing, and it will tell a dual story about the early days of a virus that wipes out much
“Dear White People” may be saying goodbye to Netflix with this fourth season, but the show is going out with a bang as not only a musical season, but also one that flashes 15 years into the future to see where the characters land post-graduation from Winchester University. In a series of show-stopping numbers, creator
Britney Spears’ lawyer told a judge on Wednesday that he expects that her conservatorship will be terminated “completely and inevitably” this fall. In a court filing, attorney Mathew Rosengart reiterated that his top priority, however, is removing her father, Jamie Spears, from the role of conservator of her estate, which has given him control over
Daniel ZuchnikGetty Images We’ve all been here during the past year’s surge in online shopping: Clicking through a laundry list of stores, scrolling endlessly to find just one perfect jean or sweater—if we’re lucky. We know what we want, but our favorite retailers can’t always deliver it. The home of your go-to styling subscription might
The tune of Nicholas Britell’s captivating, dissonant main theme for “Succession” will soon make its way back onto screens — accompanied by a grainy, wistful montage of the power-hungry privilege-abusing Roy family before they became the self-indulgent amoral monsters fans can’t help but to simultaneously love and loathe. One question that is on many fans’
Rovier Carrington, a self-described Hollywood “it boy,” has been charged with perjury in connection with a salacious sex abuse lawsuit he filed against Viacom and its executives in 2018. Carrington was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he had fabricated emails to support the suit, which was ultimately dismissed. In the suit, Carrington accused former MTV
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched the fourth and final season of “Dear White People,” streaming now on Netflix. When Justin Simien was adapting his 2014 satirical film “Dear White People” into a half-hour television series, he created a bible for the show that included a reference to Donald Trump becoming
Composer Dan Gillespie Sells says he wanted to tell the story of young Jamie Campbell in “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” because the central protagonist is heroic and not victimized. In the film — now streaming on Amazon Prime Video — Jamie (Max Harwood) is a 16-year-old who dreams of becoming a drag queen. Sells, who
“Dear Evan Hansen,” the big-screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical, premieres in theaters this weekend. Will it be found at the top of box office charts? The Universal film, which sees Ben Platt reprising his Tony-winning role, is projected to debut to approximately $10 million from 3,300 North American cinemas. It’s the only new
No false advertising anywhere on the cover of the newest entry in Bob Dylan’s “Bootleg Series” about which era is being covered. The boxed set’s subtitle lays out the dates — 1980-85 — but even before you land on the fine print, there’s the period-specificity of the cover photo, a vintage Ken Regan shot of
New Line Cinema founder Bob Shaye has signed on as a strategic investor to Brat TV, a digital studio that specializes in producing scripted series for Gen Z audiences. Shaye, who will also join Brat’s board of directors, is best known as the creative force behind some of the most memorable cinematic franchises, including “Lord
Comcast has launched a new wireless streaming device — the XiOne — that will become the company’s standard platform across the globe. In Europe, the XiOne is enabling the first delivery of video services over internet protocol for Sky customers. It’s currently available in Italy and Germany to Sky Q customers, and Comcast is beginning
Josh O’Connor learned the hard way that an Emmy can be a royal pain as an unintentional weapon. Hugging someone at the end of the Sept. 19 ceremony in downtown Los Angeles while holding his new statuette, the “Crown” star — who had just prevailed for lead drama actor — accidentally knocked himself in the
Before the characters of CBS’ venerable “CSI” return to solve murders and mysteries, fans of the show can get a head start. For two weeks before the launch of the ten-episode series “CSI: Vegas,” CBS will drop clues to a new case daily across social media, on its air, and across other networks owned by
“I’m not ready to be a human pop star,” a contestant on Fox’s new show “Alter Ego” tells us. “I want to be a digital pop star.” That’s the “Alter Ego” proposition in a nutshell. We meet aspirant singers, speaking as themselves, as they design digital avatars synced to their body and voice. Then, with
As it expands its global footprint, Lionsgate-backed streaming service Starzplay has snapped up exclusive rights to hit series “Outlander” in the U.K., Variety can reveal. The deal marks the first time the long-running Starz show, which will debut season 6 in early 2022, will be streamed on its home platform outside the U.S. “Outlander,” which