Two boys are sitting on a hill at the edge of a forest, under a massive stone wall towering above them. Dreaming, laughing, joking, like any other teenagers. The menacing sound of a doorbell foreshadows their happiness, and we begin to understand: the protagonists of the film are living between the walls of a juvenile
Veteran hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and U.S. Representatives Ted Deutch and Michael McCall will be honored on Sept. 22, when Grammys on the Hill celebrates its 20th anniversary in Washington, DC. The event brings together congressional leaders and music makers “to recognize those who have led the fight for creators’ rights,” according to
A growing number of fans are connecting with soccer through players’ stance on social issues, a survey commissioned by Sky Sports ahead of the U.K. domestic soccer season has found. The “Football Fandom in 2021” report records that 70% of people surveyed feel the power of players has enabled the nation to advance conversations around
The Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia has canceled its in-person screening component, due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the city. After a fully online edition in 2020, the 2021 festival was scheduled to run Aug. 12-22 as a hybrid combining online and real-world elements. But on Wednesday, the premier of Victoria
Pat Hitchcock, director Alfred Hitchcock’s only child, has died at 93. Her daughter, Katie O’Connell-Fiala, confirmed that she died Monday in Thousand Oaks, Calif. She appeared in her father’s films including “Strangers on a Train,” “Psycho” and “Stage Fright.” In “Psycho,” Hitchcock played Janet Leigh’s office mate Caroline, who offers to share her tranquilizers. In
Jack White III has a thing for things that come in threes, so it perhaps follows that there would be a third Third Man Records location. The surprise, perhaps, is that he hasn’t augmented the Nashville and Detroit storefronts by going to one or the other U.S. coasts with a new retail outlet, but has
SPOILER ALERT: Do not read ahead, if you have not watched the season finale of Katie Thurston’s season of “The Bachelorette,” which aired Monday, Aug. 9 on ABC. When “The Bachelorette” started this season, the drama was off-screen, surrounding the now-departed host Chris Harrison. But by the time Season 17 ended, the drama was back on
CAA has signed singer, songwriter, rapper and producer Belly in all areas worldwide. Raised in Canada, the native Palestinian has credits on hits by Beyoncé, Ariana Grande and The Weeknd, with whom he collaborated on half the tracks from the album “After Hours,” including the eight-times-platinum “Blinding Lights.” Belly’s current single, “Better Believe,” features The Weeknd
Festival regular Edwin delivers a withering critique of masculinity with the enjoyably gritty if over-obvious “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash.” Usually when films deal with impotence, they tend to be coy or jokey, but there’s no beating around the bush here: Erectile dysfunction is the theme, with all the implications of disempowerment and
Ever since “Nine Days” filmmaker Edson Oda won the Sundance Film Festival’s Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in January 2020, the prize has been a great boost of confidence whenever a little imposter syndrome syndrome kicks in. “I keep it on another table so I can see it,” Edson tells Variety over Zoom, pointing at the
With the NBA still on the outs with China and Nike hit with Chinese backlash over Xinjiang, it might seem that “Space Jam: A New Legacy” has two serious fouls against its chances of entering the world’s largest film market. But signs indicate that Beijing may uniquely embrace the “Space Jam” star LeBron James in
The Television Academy is taking the Emmys outdoors. The org announced Tuesday afternoon that the Emmy ceremonies, both Primetime and Creative Arts, will be held on the Event Deck at L.A. Live, next to the Microsoft Theater — marking the second year in a row that the Emmys were not actually held inside the Microsoft.
Bella Poarch, a huge TikTok star and singer, signed with A3 Artists Agency for representation under the alternative programming, digital media, licensing and branding division. Poarch broke out in August 2020 with her first viral post on TikTok, lip-synching to Millie B’s “M to the B,” which was the No. 1 viral video on the
While she only had five concerts on the books for 2021, Stevie Nicks has decided to cancel them all, the singer announced on Tuesday. “These are challenging times with challenging decisions that have to be made,” Nicks said in a statement. “I want everyone to be safe and healthy and the rising Covid cases should be
“I was very struck by a quote by Fritz Lang, who said that ‘every film should criticize something,’ ” Axelle Ropert says. For the French filmmaker’s latest work “Petite Solange,” a world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, it is the complicated aspects of familial life and interpersonal relationships that come under the microscope. Ropert’s
SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you’ve not seen “The Suicide Squad,” currently in theaters and streaming on HBO Max. Storm Reid has only two scenes in DC’s R-rated action spectacle “The Suicide Squad,” from writer-director James Gunn, but the 18-year-old acting veteran (“A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Invisible Man,” HBO’s “Euphoria”) makes the most of
After decades of waiting — and a comic, snafu-filled attempt to get all three members on Instagram Live — De La Soul announced on Tuesday that their catalog, most of which has never been legally available on streaming services, will finally arrive on all major platforms later this year. The announcement follows news earlier this
Flying largely under the radar, startup shingle Randomix Productions has shared in exclusivity a clip to Southern Gothic horror movie “What Josiah Saw,” one of the titles with the highest-profile star casts at Fantasia: Robert Patrick (“The Terminator”), Nick Stahl (“Sin City”), Scott Haze (“Child of God”) and Kelli Garner (“Lars and the Real Girl”).
Hot off his starring role in “The Suicide Squad,” Idris Elba has joined the cast of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” as the voice of Knuckles, Sonic’s scrappy nemesis-turned-compatriot, Paramount announced on Tuesday. The actor confirmed the casting by posting a first look at the character — or, rather, the character’s hand, including his signature spiked
NBA star Steph Curry will be the subject of a new documentary from A24 and producer Ryan Coogler. Titled “Underrated,” the film will chronicle Curry’s historic rise to prominence during March Madness when he played for the Davidson Wildcats. The all-star athlete, considered one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, currently plays for the
A group of Spanish filmmakers denounced the San Sebastian’s film festival’s announcement that it would honor Johnny Depp with the Donostia Award at the 69th annual festival next month. The Associated Press reported that the women filmmakers said awarding Depp the highest honor at San Sebastian gives the event a bad name after a British
The chandelier inside the Majestic Theater — the iconic gold fixture that plummets into the audience as the “The Phantom of the Opera” reaches its act one climax — is still dark, and it’ll stay that way until at least the end of October. But on Monday evening, the theater community gathered at the Majestic
HBO has ordered another season of Mike White’s “The White Lotus,” a vicious, buzzy satire set at an ornate Hawaiian resort. According to HBO, its second installment will leave Hawaii “and follows a different group of vacationers as they jet to another White Lotus property and settle in temporarily amongst its inhabitants.” In interviews, White
ABC Signature, the production arm of the Disney-owned network, has re-upped its first-look deal with P3 Media, the brainchild of Emmy-winning journalist, producer and attorney Adam Ciralsky. P3 Media is an intellectual property generator and incubator that is driven by the model of bringing IP engines in-house and churning out premium IP-driven content. Some of
In a new issue of the monthly anthology comic series “Batman: Urban Legends,” Batman’s famed sidekick Robin came out as bisexual. The sixth issue of the series, which came out Tuesday, shows the character Tim Drake, the third character to take up the Robin mantle in DC Comics history, agreeing to go on a date
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican U.S. representative who is part of the GOP’s anti-vax wing, was suspended by Twitter for one week after she posted a tweet that said the FDA should not approve COVID-19 vaccines and that the vaccines were “failing.” On Monday, Greene had written in a tweet, “The FDA should not approve
France-based Vivendi, parent of Universal Music Group, has sold 7.1% of that company’s share capital to Pershing Square Holdings, the investment firm managed by billionaire Bill Ackman, for $2.8 billion, with the possibility to sell him a further 2.9% by September 9, 2021. The deal values UMG — the world’s largest music company — at
In what many in the music industry fear is a harbinger of things to come, Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam, a major country music festival set to go down Labor Day weekend in Florida, has been called off for this year due to record-breaking COVID spikes in the state. Chris Stapleton, Brooks & Dunn and Old
“High on the Hog” has been renewed for a second season at Netflix. Netflix has ordered a second season of “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” the critically acclaimed series that celebrates the courage, artistry and resourcefulness of African Americans that helped define the American kitchen. The series is based on
Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced New York governor who resigned today, was a creature of television. He’d already been a successful politician — a street-fighting candidate turned three-term governor — before his rise to national prominence during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But his daily televised briefings created the perception that Cuomo was the