TV shows, TikTok, live mini-shows, Instagram Stories, and memes - comedy has changed. Even the second Borat movie, though it was made and was fairly popular, only shows that "the form itself is in transit, evolving and branching out into a multiplicity of approaches that reflect the diverse and pulsating world we now live in." - Prospect (UK)
Owen Gleiberman: "To go or not to go? To believe in the primacy of the communal, cathartic big-screen experience or to see it as a stodgy, unhip relic? No one thought this way about the movie theater versus VHS or DVD; the industry wasted no time transforming those technologies into ancillary markets that helped keep movies afloat. But streaming...
"Rather than offering an escapist vision of a world unravaged by pandemic, I've taken reassurance from the way these shows offer an escapist vision of pandemic. They present quarantine conditions as a utopia in which creative laborers, isolated in a single space for an extended period of time, yield art validated through external adjudication. They have 'flourished,' instead of...
Can a producers' union ever work in the biz? They need it. "More than 100 feature film producers ... recently ratified the constitution for a new union they hope will provide the kind of basic healthcare, pay and protections afforded by most other unionized Hollywood workers." - Los Angeles Times
Well, A Quiet Place II's boffo box office seems to indicate that people are sick of their living rooms and, one hopes, fully vaccinated and ready to go to the movies. - Variety
Honestly, among fans, the food is famous. "HBO is aware of the series' reputation, and continues to tweet things like 'The Mare of Easttown food pyramid: fries, peanut butter, spray cheese, vitamins, and beer' while legions of fans have taken to kicking back on Sunday nights with Rolling Rock and cheesesteaks." - Salon
We don't avoid telling stories about difficult topics. "There have been numerous movies about slavery, about Jim Crow, about the Vietnam War. There have even been movies about America’s inaction to the genocide in Rwanda, a story whose national footprint is likely much smaller than that of the Tulsa massacre’s. Yet when it comes to the more than 30...
Both on Master of None and Solos, even when the pandemic isn't in the script, it affects everything. New seasons feel "intriguingly defined by current events, and yet similarly handicapped by them." It's not easy to make TV during a global pandemic, but, says a critic, "All I want now, watching shows after 14 months of social withdrawal, is...
The problem is a new variant: "After delays caused by Covid, the festival confirmed it would take place in early July, but France has announced a seven-day isolation period for visitors from the UK in response to rising concerns over the Covid variant B.1.617.2, first detected in India. The move is likely to affect thousands, both among the press corps and...
Yes, that's right, the long-running sitcom (still massively popular with Millennials and Gen-Zers thanks to streaming) is useful for English language-learners around the world. "The dad jeans and cordless telephones may look dated, but the plot twists — falling in love, starting a career and other seminal moments in a young person’s life — are still highly relatable." -...
There's a bad review of Paddington 2? Yes" "The new Paddington 2 review slammed the warm-hearted adventure film for having deviated from the spirit of Michael Bond’s children’s books, being 'contrived and ridiculous,' with Paddington being 'over-confident, snide and sullen,' claimed 'considerations of race and identity, key to the Paddington character, are not addressed,' and added that voice actor Ben Whishaw...
It's not common for Italian shows to have mostly Black casts, but the new show Zero does - and makes the invisibility of Black Italians a superpower. - NPR
Amazon desperately needed content, but will the Bond plan work? "Bond is a treasure trove, unexploited beyond the 25 feature films focusing on its star, which Amazon would dearly love to develop into a Marvel- or Star Wars-like 'universe” 'The only problem is that Bond is partly owned by Eon Productions in the UK, which is run by Barbara Broccoli...
The chair of the Board of Supervisors of Easttown says the real town isn't much like the show. "'I can’t remember when the last homicide was here, if ever,' said Marc Heppe (pronounced “heppy”), chair of the Easttown Township board of supervisors. ... The big conflicts are over 'a lot of NIMBY stuff' — new development and more traffic....
Gotta keep those subscriber numbers up with direct to streaming movies! But ... how do agents, producers, directors, and actors feel about this? It's not ideal right now: "Talent typically has little leverage should a studio decide to put a title onto a streaming service, sources say. It did not readily occur to either agents or studios that contracts...
