“I’ve never been to Lebanon,” Lebanese-American high-schooler Marjoun (Veracity Butcher) tells us in voiceover. “Just here: Arkansas.” There’s the slightest uninflected irony in her delivery of that last word, suggesting that her story will archly observe the conundrum of many a second-generation immigrant: belonging to a place that often fails to recognize you as one
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California’s Central District court ruled on Thursday that comedian Mo’Nique’s discrimination lawsuit against Netflix can move forward, denying Netflix’s attempt to dismiss the claim. Mo’Nique, whose legal name is Monique Hicks, filed a race and sex discrimination suit against the streaming service in November. She alleges that Netflix broke the law when it gave her
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Ellie Goulding may not be not a household name in America in the same star electro-pop universe that contains brand-name contemporaries such as Katy Perry, Lorde and Florence Welch. But if so, who wants to live in that house, anyway? Ever since the anthemic, soft-EDM pop of 2010’s “Lights” and its accompanying folktronic album of
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RespectAbility Entertainment Lab 2020 wrapped July 16, after 15 sessions intended to create an industry pipeline of professionals with disabilities behind the camera. The five-week program is sponsored by the nonprofit RespectAbility and is run by four women with disabilities: Lauren Appelbaum, Tatiana Lee, Nasreen Alkhateeb and Leah Romond. The program targets individuals who are
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“Briarpatch,” the Rosario Dawson-led anthology series, has been canceled after only one season at USA Network. The cancelation was confirmed by showrunner Andy Greenwald, who posted the news on Twitter. “Briarpatch” finished its brief 10-episode run back in April. “Just wanted to let you know some disappointing news before you hear it from anyone else:
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An open letter calling for the immediate release of Egyptian film producer Moataz Abdelwahab was published Friday, cosigned by the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (ICFR) and its founding institutions, which include the European Film Academy, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Human Rights Film Network, among others. The
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Throughout the U.S.’s decades-long war in Afghanistan, Americans have seen (perhaps even been part of) a scene played out thousands of times in airport terminals and on military tarmacs. While the permanent fixture aspect of the airport reunion should vex, the emotion of it never gets old. It gets another powerful closeup in “Father Soldier
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Producer and music supervisor Randall Poster has partnered with Loudon Wainwright III and big band leader/Prohibition-era scholar Vince Giordano for “I’d Rather Lead a Band,” a new project based around the Great American Songbook. Poster has provided music for over 100 films including “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Boyhood” and “Skyfall.” His earliest credits featured on
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Jesus and Mary Chain, Royal Trux and Spacemen 3 aren’t evoked by many albums these days, but they’re present in glorious splendor on “Flower of Devotion,” the third full-length from Chicago trio Dehd. With singers Emily Kempf and Jason Balla trading snarling, sneering, drawling vocals over twanging, heavily reverbed guitars and echo-laden drums (with the
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The Rome Film Festival has announced plans to hold a physical edition from Oct. 15-25, featuring several titles from the Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection, alongside a roster of other pics including David Bowie origin pic “Stardust” and local crowdpleaser “Mi Chiamo Francesco Totti” (“My Name is Francesco Totti”), a doc about the A.S. Roma
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The Twitter hackers behind the unprecedented coordinated July 15 attack on high-profile accounts of multiple celebrities, politicians, tech titans and Silicon Valley companies went after about 130 separate accounts, the company said late Thursday. The FBI and the New York Attorney General announced probes of the security incident. The scammers hijacked accounts with tens of
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