Award-winning comedian Sean Lock has died from cancer, his agents confirmed on Wednesday. He was 58 years old. “It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Sean Lock. He died at home from cancer, surrounded by his family,” reads a statement from Lock’s agency, Off The Kerb Productions. “Sean was
Both the title and opening voiceover of the Jordanian feature “The Alleys” make us think we’re in Naguib Mahfouz territory, evoking the backstreets of a neighborhood where “average” people lead intersected lives and everyone knows everyone else’s business — a place where, as the narrator tells it, “a story spreads like wildfire.” It’s a great
American cartoon giant DC Comics and South Korean talent agency HYBE have agreed to work with online animation firm Webtoon on content creation. Korea-based Webtoon is part of Asian internet giant Naver, best known for its Naver search engine functions and for the Line messaging app. Naver recently paid $600 million to buy online story
Donald Trump is making his views known on President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. In an interview with Sean Hannity on his Fox News show Tuesday night, the former president called Biden’s handling of the situation “the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country.” Just two weeks before the U.S. was planning to complete
Back in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, what we used to call monster movies had simple concepts and catchy, explicit titles that mirrored them. “Dracula.” “The Werewolf.” “King Kong.” “Mothra vs. Godzilla.” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” “Creature from the Black Lagoon.” “The Blob.” When you watch a movie like “Demonic,” you only wish
The 10th installment of the “Fast and Furious” franchise is set to speed into theaters in 2023. “Fast and Furious 10” will debut on April 7, 2023, Variety has confirmed. The film, which is the second to last movie in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, will be directed by Justin Lin. It was originally scheduled for release
Some performers end up having more lively discographies posthumously than they ever did in life. Anderson .Paak does not mean to be one of them. And whereas some artists might just put a ban on post-death releases in their wills, .Paak isn’t just waiting for the executor of his estate to get the message —
Freeform has canceled the Josh Thomas comedy “Everything’s Gonna Be Okay” after two seasons. The quirky Australian auteur starred as a young man who is suddenly tasked with raising his two half-sisters after the death of their father. Thomas confirmed Tuesday in a tweet that the series would not be back for a third season.
There’s no kidding around about the “ole” in Grand Ole Opry: The most venerable of all American broadcast institutions, now 94 years old, will celebrate its 5,000th Saturday night show in October, to be preceded by a month-long countdown to the historic milestone. Plans for the commemorative events were discussed at a press conference at
The Chinese government has taken a stake and one of three board seats in a key subsidiary of TikTok owner ByteDance, reports said Tuesday, reviving debate about whether the popular short-form video app poses a national security threat. Chinese authorities now own a 1% stake in Beijing ByteDance Company, a firm that owns key licenses
Anyone who has attended any public events in Canada in recent years will likely be familiar with the practice of land acknowledgement: a solemn formal statement, recited before sports matches, film festival screenings or simple school assemblies, that historically contextualizes the very land on which the crowd is gathered, and admits a debt to the
Kimberley Motley, a human rights lawyer and the subject of the 2015 documentary “Motley’s Law,” has a unique perspective on life in Afghanistan. And she wants Americans to know — whatever they may see through news coverage of the country’s collapse, the reality on the ground for women under Taliban rule will be far worse.
“Bridgerton” breakout Phoebe Dynevor is attached to star and executive produce “Exciting Times,” a book-to-screen adaptation and romance series in development at Amazon Studios. Based on Irish author Naoise Dolan’s debut novel, “Exciting Times” centers on Ava, an Irish transplant teaching English grammar abroad to wealthy children. She becomes entangled in a love triangle with
The music documentary “Under the Volcano” is essentially a travelogue — not so much for its setting, the island of Monserrat in the West Indies, although there are luscious drone shots aplenty, as for the trip it takes back to the pop world of the 1980s. The subject is super-producer George Martin’s short-lived AIR Studio
There are two ways to watch “Cop Secret,” a wild-ride Icelandic satire of Hollywood action films. One is the classic “switch off your brain” strategy, which allows for an easy digestion of the non-stop parody elements in which each line and every situation is lifted wholesale from any number of cop thrillers. The other, with
In a key sequence in Disney’s “Jungle Cruise,” Emily Blunt’s Lily Houghton and Dwayne Johnson’s skipper Frank have to dive off their boat to solve an underwater puzzle. Not only does Lily get trapped, but she ends up fighting for air as the drama unfolds. Underwater director of photography Ian Seabrook stepped in to film
An appeals court on Tuesday threw out a defamation lawsuit that accused Rachel Maddow of defaming One America News by calling the network “paid Russian propaganda.” The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal held that Maddow’s commentary was protected by the First Amendment, as she was simply offering her opinion based on a Daily Beast story
Peacock’s “Queer as Folk” reboot has added Jesse James Keitel as a series regular. The update is based on the landmark 1999 series from Russell T. Davis and is said to chronicle a diverse group of friends in New Orleans, whose lives are transformed in the aftermath of a tragedy. Keitel will play a trans,
The Hollywood Critics Assn. has scrapped its in-person HCA TV Awards, and will instead move the first-ever ceremony to a virtual event a week later. HCA chairman Scott Menzel said the decision was made due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles County and the US. Instead, the show will stream on
This is a tale of a few tweets. “Shang-Chi” star Simu Liu was practically giddy with excitement as he posed on the red carpet outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood ahead of the world premiere of Marvel Studios’ first Asian-led superhero film. Hours before Monday night’s red carpet, Liu tweeted to his followers, asking
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has issued a new order stating that attendees of any major outdoor event will be required to wear a mask due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. The requirement stands regardless of vaccination status, and goes into effect as of 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 19. This
A few years ago, I asked “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke about the barrier to entry for genre shows in the Emmy race. With a few exceptions, such as “The X-Files” and “Lost,” shows with a sci-fi, fantasy or comic book bent had a hard time being taken seriously by Television Academy voters. “I always figured
Twitter is turning to the wisdom of crowds for help in curbing misinformation on the social network. On Tuesday, Twitter announced that is launching the test of a new feature that will let users report posts that “seem misleading,” in the same way it lets people report spam and tweets that are abusive or harmful,
Worlds are colliding: “Seinfeld” star Jason Alexander will guest this upcoming season on “The Conners,” making him the latest 1990s icon to appear on the “Roseanne” sequel series. Alexander will appear in two episodes this season as “Pastor Phil,” described as “an unconventional cleric with a rebel past. He uses humor and unflinching honesty to
“The Real Housewives of Dallas” will not film this year, and a new season of the show will not air on Bravo in 2022, the network has confirmed to Variety. “There are currently no plans to bring ‘The Real Housewives of Dallas’ back next year, and beyond that nothing official has been decided,” a spokesperson
Laura Prepon has revealed that she stopped practicing Scientology five years ago. The “Orange Is the New Black” and “That ‘70s Show” star reflected on different changes that motherhood has brought into her life, including her break with the Church of Scientology. “I’m no longer practicing Scientology. I’ve always been very open-minded, even since I
“The White Lotus” packed a punch for HBO with Sunday’s finale drawing 1.9 million viewers across linear and digital platforms. Viewership of the sixth and final installment of Season 1 was up more than 59% from the Aug. 8 penultimate installment and more than triple the crowd that turned out for the series premiere on
If you saw Lorde’s “Solar Power” music video earlier this summer and wanted to join whichever commune she was advertising as “a prettier Jesus,” her new “Mood Ring” clip takes us further inside the slightly tongue-in-cheek ashram. The song arrives just three days in advance of the singer’s Jack Antonoff-co-produced “Solar Power” album, which arrives
OnlyFans, which has become a popular direct-to-consumer subscription service for X-rated content, has jumped into the streaming world — but the U.K.-based company’s new OFTV free streaming service will not include any sexually explicit material. OFTV features original content from more than 100 OnlyFans creators, spanning fitness, cooking, comedy, health, music and more. OnlyFans soft-launched
Indie film and TV studio A24 has named its first-ever chief financial officer in J.B. Lockhart. The heavyweight finance executive comes from a four-year stint at the National Basketball Association. The hire follows on the heels of Variety‘s July report that the prestige art house behind “Spring Breakers” and “Zola” was exploring numerous consolidation options.