Terry Crews fired back at comedian D.L. Hughley during a Twitter exchange Sunday about sexual assault, specifically how men "with all those muscles" should react if touched inappropriately. Read
As the gravel-voiced king of the all-American character, Sam Elliott has reverberated with onscreen charisma ever since 1969 when he landed a bit part in that ultimate piece of Americana, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. So it's not entirely surprising that Bradley Cooper famously 'stole' Elliott's iconic voice for the role of hat-wearing, hard-drinking country singer Jackson Maine in A Star is Born. Then it only made sense that Cooper would lobby hard to get Elliott… Read
Crazy Rich Asians has of course swept in a much-needed new era for actors of Asian descent, given that it's the first all-Asian cast studio film since The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago. It certainly rocked the box office, but when director Jon M. Chu set out on the project, rather than being crushed by the weight of its cultural significance, he determinedly focused on simply making the best possible film. Then, by putting together a rip-roaringly entertaining, epic… Read
When Glenn Close picked up a Golden Globe for her performance in The Wife last week, her acceptance speech reduced some of the biggest players in Hollywood to tears. And for good reason. Close talked about not allowing yourself to be be subjugated by others, and how it's not too late to acknowledge a long-held dream–relatable stuff for so many, and entirely on topic for her winning role. As Joan Castleman, Close is the titular wife accompanying her celebrated novelist… Read
It might appear at first glance that Regina Hall's wheelhouse is mostly comedy. There's Girls Trip, Black-ish, Insecure and Black Monday coming up on Showtime, and now the latest incarnation of Shaft in the offing, but Hall's sleeper hit feature Support the Girls is a stark reminder that she can do pretty much anything. A slice-of-life look at life for women working in a Hooters-type Texas bar, Support the Girls is far from the sexcapade its double entendre title might… Read
When Rob Marshall took on the follow-up to Disney’s beloved behemoth Mary Poppins, it seemed a natural fit for the Oscar-winning Chicago director who's long upheld the value of musical film. But with over 50 years between the Robert Stevenson-directed original and Mary Poppins Returns, Marshall had his work cut out in crafting an elegant homage to an iconic national treasure of cinema. Having always envisaged Emily Blunt in the lead role, and falling hard for Lin-Manuel Mi… Read
In Private Life, Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti portray a middle-aged couple struggling with infertility. The film paints a funny but unflinching portrait of the efforts to have a child, from painful IVF injections, to anxious adoption interviews, to the humbling search for an egg donor. Throughout the journey, they remain a unit. With their on-screen chemistry fully intact in the mahogany and red-velvet environs of New York’s NoMad Hotel, Hahn and Giamatti greet each… Read
The real Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart probably never met. But when you cast a film with Margot Robbie as Elizabeth, and Saoirse Ronan as Mary, it seems only right that they come together, if only for one scene. Josie Rourke's Mary Queen of Scots may briefly put the two monarchs face-to-face, but otherwise, staying true to the characters' separate lives, Ronan and Robbie didn't meet on set at all until they were on camera together—a decision Ronan calls a mutual… Read
After collaborating on 2015's The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos and Olivia Colman reteamed for this year's twisted take on the court of Queen Anne, giving a jolt to the period cinema genre, and picking up accolades all along the awards season trail. Lanthimos has said he wouldn't have made The Favourite without Colman, whose character is the linchpin of a trio of strong women at the center of the movie. Director and star recently hopped on the phone with us to riff on the… Read
Paul Schrader and Ethan Hawke did not expect to be here. The writer/director and his actor are still talking about First Reformed, 18 months on from its premiere at Venice, as they receive nominations and awards to add to the mountains of critical praise the film has drawn. Its examination of a crisis of faith for a pastoral minister as two of his flock struggle with the decision to bring a child into a fractured world is, at turns, social realism and cinematic fantasy… Read
Nicole Kidman is barefoot in a floor-length gown, ice-blue like her eyes. When she curls into a corner of the sofa, she looks relaxed and regal, a woman whose earned the right to stretch after a frantically busy fall. At this moment, her blockbuster Aquaman is topping the box office. You might not expect to see Kidman play an Atlantis queen who accessorizes with a lobster claw, but she’s wanted to work with director James Wan since he caught her eye making low-budget… Read
Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman premiered in August, on the one year anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This was no accident. Lee's film, based on the memoir of black police officer Ron Stallworth, who successfully infiltrated the David Duke-run KKK in the 1970s, had so many rhetorical parallels with what happened in Charlottesville, when white supremacist demonstrators marched to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, and which… Read
