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Tag: comedy

  • Summer movie season is in full swing. Here’s what’s coming through Labor Day

    Summer movie season is in full swing. Here’s what’s coming through Labor Day

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    The summer movie season goes into high-gear in July, with the arrival of the seventh “Mission: Impossible” movie followed by the “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” showdown on July 21.

    Not that you have to choose one or the other — as Tom Cruise said on Twitter, “I love a double feature, and it doesn’t get more explosive (or more pink) than the one with Oppenheimer and Barbie.”

    August also promises a new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and introduces a new DC superhero, Blue Beetle.

    Moviegoers were only moderately interested in going to the theater to say goodbye to Harrison Ford’s archaeologist character in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”

    FILE - Karen Allen arrives at the premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," in Los Angeles on June 14, 2023. Allen portrayed Marion Ravenwood in "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

    Indiana Jones. Karen Allen always knew he’d come walking back through her door. Since 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Allen’s Marion Ravenwood has been only a sporadic presence in the subsequent sequels.

    Actor and musician Russell Crowe arrives to the 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), Wednesday, June 28, 2023, in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. (Slavomir Kubes/CTK via AP)

    An international film festival in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary has kicked off its 57th edition with an award planned for Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe.

    Actor Kevin Spacey arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London, Friday, June 30, 2023. Spacey is going on trial on charges he sexually assaulted four men as long as two decades ago. The double-Oscar winner faces a dozen charges at Southwark Crown Court. Spacey pleads not guilty to all charges. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

    A London prosecutor says Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey is a “sexual bully” who assaults other men and doesn’t respect personal boundaries.

    Here’s a month-by-month guide of this summer’s new movies. Keep scrolling for more info and review links for May and June’s releases.

    July 7

    ” Insidious: The Red Door ” (Sony, theaters): Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are back to scare everyone in the fifth edition.

    “ Joy Ride ” (Lionsgate, theaters): Adele Lim directs this raucous comedy about a friends trip to China to find someone’s birth mother, starring Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu.

    “ The Lesson ” (Bleecker Street, theaters): A young novelist helps an acclaimed author in this thriller with Richard E. Grant.

    “ Biosphere ” (IFC, theaters and VOD): Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown are the last two men on Earth.

    “ Earth Mama ” (A24, theaters): This acclaimed debut from Savannah Leaf focuses on a woman, single and pregnant with two kids in foster care, trying to reclaim her family in the Bay Area.

    July 14

    “ Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part I” (Paramount, theaters, on July 12): Tom Cruise? Death-defying stunts in Venice? The return of Kittridge? What more do you need?

    “ Theater Camp ”(Searchlight, theaters): Musical theater nerds (and comedy fans) will delight in this loving satire of a childhood institution, with Ben Platt and Molly Gordon.

    “ The Miracle Club ” (Sony Pictures Classics, theaters): Lifetime friends (Kathy Bates, Maggie Smith, Agnes O’Casey) in a small Dublin community in 1967 dream of a trip to Lourdes, a town in France where miracles are supposed to happen. Laura Linney co-stars.

    “ 20 Days in Mariupol ” (in theaters in New York): AP’s Mstyslav Chernov directs this documentary, a joint project between The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” about the first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, became the only international journalists operating in the city. Their coverage won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

    “ Afire ” (Janus Films, theaters): This drama from German director Christian Petzold is set at a vacation home by the Baltic Sea where tensions rise between a writer, a photographer and a mysterious guest (Paula Beer) as a wildfire looms.

    “ They Cloned Tyrone ” (Netflix): John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx lead this mystery caper.

    July 21

    “ Oppenheimer ” (Universal, theaters): Christopher Nolan takes audiences into the mind of the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer ( Cillian Murphy ) as he and his peers build up to the trinity test at Los Alamos.

    “ Barbie ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Margot Robbie plays the world’s most famous doll (as do many others) opposite Ryan Gosling’s Ken in Greta Gerwig’s comedic look at their perfect world.

    “ Stephen Curry: Underrated ” (Apple TV+): Peter Nicks directs a documentary about the four-time NBA champion.

    “ The Beanie Bubble ” (in select theaters; on Apple TV+ on July 28): Zach Galifianakis stars as the man behind Beanie Babies in this comedic drama, co-starring Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan.

    July 28

    “ Haunted Mansion ” (Disney, theaters): A Disney ride comes to life in with the help of Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito.

    “ Talk to Me ” (A24, theaters): A group of friends conjure spirits in this horror starring Sophie Wilde and Joe Bird.

    “ Happiness for Beginners ” (Netflix, on July 27): Ellie Kemper is a newly divorced woman looking to shake things up.

    “ Sympathy for the Devil ” (RLJE Films): Joel Kinnaman is forced to drive a mysterious gunman (Nicolas Cage) in this thriller.

    “ Kokomo City ” (Magnolia): A documentary following four Black transgender sex workers. One of the subjects, Koko Da Doll, was shot and killed in April.

    August 4

    “ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem ” (Paramount, theaters): This animated movie puts the teenage back in the equation with a very funny voice cast including Seth Rogen and John Cena as Bebop and Rocksteady.

    “ Shortcomings ” (Sony Pictures Classics, theaters): Randall Park directs this adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel about Asian American friends in the Bay Area starring Sherry Cola as Alice, Ally Maki as Miko and Justin H. Min as Ben.

    “ Meg 2: The Trench ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Jason Statham is back fighting sharks.

    “ Passages ” (Mubi): The relationship of a longtime couple (Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw) is thrown when one begins an affair with a woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos).

    “ A Compassionate Spy ” (Magnolia): Steve James’ documentary about the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project who fed information to the Soviets.

    “Dreamin’ Wild” (Roadside Attractions): Casey Affleck stars in this film about musical duo Donnie and Joe Emerson.

    “ Problemista ” (A24, theaters): Julio Torres plays an aspiring toy designer in this surreal comedy co-starring Tilda Swinton that he also wrote, directed and produced.

    August 11

    “ Gran Turismo ” (Sony, theaters): A gamer gets a chance to drive a professional course in this video game adaptation starring David Harbour and Orlando Bloom.

    “ The Last Voyage of the Demeter ” (Universal, theaters): This supernatural horror film draws from a chapter of “Dracula.”

    “ Heart of Stone ” (Netflix): Gal Gadot played an intelligence operative in this action thriller, with Jamie Dornan.

    “The Eternal Memory” (MTV Documentary Films): This documentary explores a marriage and Alzheimer’s disease.

    “The Pod Generation” (Vertical, theaters): Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in this sci-fi comedy about a new path to parenthood.

    “Jules” (Bleecker Street, theaters): Ben Kingsley stars in this film about a UFO that crashes in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania.

    August 18

    “ Blue Beetle ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Xolo Maridueña plays the DC superhero Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle in this origin story.

    “ Strays ” (Universal, theaters): Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx voice dogs in this not-animated, R-rated comedy.

    “birth/rebirth” (IFC, theaters): A woman and a morgue technician bring a little girl back to life in this horror.

    “ White Bird ” (Lionsgate, theaters): Helen Mirren tells her grandson, expelled from school for bullying, a story about herself in Nazi-occupied France.

    “Landscape with Invisible Hand” (MGM, theaters): Teens come up with a unique moneymaking scheme in a world taken over by aliens.

    “The Hill” (Briarcliff Entertainment): This baseball drama starring Dennis Quaid is based on the true story of Rickey Hill.

    August 25

    “They Listen” (Sony, theaters): John Cho and Katherine Waterston lead this secretive Blumhouse horror.

    “Golda” (Bleecker Street): Helen Mirren stars in this drama about Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

    “ Bottoms ” (MGM, theaters): Two unpopular teenage girls (Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri) start a fight club to impress the cheerleaders they want to lose their virginity to in this parody of the teen sex comedy.

    “The Dive” (RLJE Films): In this suspense pic about two sisters out for a dive, one gets hurt and is trapped underwater.

    “Scrapper” (Kino Lorber, theaters): A 12-year-old girl (Lola Campbell) is living alone in a London flat until her estranged father (Harris Dickinson) shows up.

    “Fremont” (Music Box Films, theaters): A former army translator in Afghanistan (Anaita Wali Zada) relocates to Fremont, California and gets a job at a fortune cookie factory. “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White co-stars.

    September 1

    “ The Equalizer 3 ” (Sony, theaters): Denzel Washington is back as Robert McCall, who is supposed to be retired from the assassin business but things get complicated in Southern Italy.

    ALREADY IN THEATERS AND STREAMING

    “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” (Disney/Marvel): Nine years after the non-comic obsessed world was introduced to Peter Quill, Rocket, Groot and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the misfits are closing out the trilogy and saying goodbye to director James Gunn, who is now leading rival DC. ( AP’s review.)

    “ What’s Love Got to Do with It? ” (Shout! Studios): Lily James plays a documentary filmmaker whose next project follows her neighbor (Shazad Latif) on his road to an arranged marriage in this charming romantic comedy.

    “ Book Club: The Next Chapter ” (Focus Features): Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen travel to Italy to celebrate an engagement.

    “ The Mother,” ( Netflix ): Jennifer Lopez is an assassin and a mother in this action pic timed to Mother’s Day. (AP’s review here.)

    “ Love Again ” (Sony): Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays a woman mourning the death of her boyfriend who texts his old number not knowing it belongs to someone new (Sam Heughan). Celine Dion (and her music) co-star in this romantic drama.

    “ STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie ” ( AppleTV+ ): Davis Guggenheim helps Michael J. Fox tell his story, from his rise in Hollywood to his Parkinson’s diagnosis and beyond.

    “ Monica ” (IFC): A transgender woman, estranged from her family, goes home to visit her dying mother in this film starring Tracee Lysette and Patricia Clarkson.

    “ The Starling Girl ” (Bleecker Street): Eliza Scanlen plays a 17-year-old girl living in a fundamentalist Christian community in Kentucky whose life changes with the arrival of Lewis Pullman’s charismatic youth pastor.

    “ Fool’s Paradise ” (Roadside Attractions): Charlie Day writes, directs and plays dual roles in this comedic Hollywood satire.

    “ Hypnotic ” (Ketchup Entertainment): Ben Affleck plays a detective whose daughter goes missing in this Robert Rodriguez movie.

    “ It Ain’t Over ” (Sony Pictures Classics): A documentary about Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi’ Berra.

    “Blackberry” (IFC): Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton star in this movie about the rise of the Blackberry. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Fast X ” (Universal): In the tenth installment of the Fast franchise, Jason Momoa joins as the vengeful son of a slain drug lord intent to take out Vin Diesel’s Dom. ( AP’s review.)

    “ White Men Can’t Jump ” (20th Century Studios, streaming on Hulu): Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow co-star in this remake of the 1992 film, co-written by Kenya Barris and featuring the late Lance Reddick. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Master Gardener ” (Magnolia): Joel Edgerton is a horticulturist in this Paul Schrader drama, co-starring Sigourney Weaver as a wealthy dowager. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Sanctuary ” (Neon): A dark comedy about a dominatrix (Margaret Qualley) and her wealth client (Christopher Abbott).

    “ The Little Mermaid ” (Disney): Halle Bailey plays Ariel in this technically ambitious live-action remake of a recent Disney classic directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) and co-starring Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. ( AP’s review.)

    “ You Hurt My Feelings ” (A24): Nicole Holofcener takes a nuanced and funny look at a white lie that unsettles the marriage between a New York City writer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and a therapist (Tobias Menzies). ( AP’s review.)

    “ About My Father ” (Lionsgate): Stand-up comic Sebastian Maniscalco co-wrote this culture clash movie in which he takes his Italian-American father (Robert De Niro) on a vacation with his wife’s WASPy family. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Victim/Suspect ” ( Netflix ): This documentary explores how law enforcement sometimes indicts victims of sexual assault instead of helping.

    “ The Machine,” (Sony): Stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer brings Mark Hamill into the fray for this action-comedy.

    “ Kandahar ” (Open Road Films): Gerard Butler plays an undercover CIA operative in hostile territory in Afghanistan.

    “ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ” (Sony): Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is back, but with things not going so well in Brooklyn, he opts to visit the multiverse with his old pal Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), where he encounters the Spider-Society. ( AP’s review.)

    “ The Boogeyman ” (20th Century Studios): “It’s the thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” David Dastmalchian explains to Chris Messina in this Stephen King adaptation.

    “ Past Lives ” (A24): Already being hailed as one of the best of the year after its Sundance debut, Celine Song’s directorial debut is a decades and continent-spanning romance about two friends separated in childhood who meet 20 years later in New York. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ” (Paramount): Steven Caple Jr directs the seventh Transformers movie, starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback. ( AP’s review.)

    “Flamin’ Hot” ( Hulu, Disney+): Eva Longoria directs this story about Richard Montañez, a janitor at Frito-Lay who came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Blue Jean ” (Magnolia): It’s 1988 in England and hostilities are mounting towards the LGBTQ community in Georgia Oakley’s BAFTA-nominated directorial debut about a gym teacher (Rosy McEwan) and the arrival of a new student. ( AP’s review.)

    “Daliland” (Magnolia): Mary Harron directs Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí.

    “ The Flash ” (Warner Bros.): Batmans past Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton assemble for this standalone Flash movie directed by Andy Muschietti and starring Ezra Miller as the titular superhero. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Elemental ” (Pixar): In Element City, residents include Air, Earth, Water and Fire in the new Pixar original, featuring the voices of Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie and Catherine O’Hara. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Extraction 2 ” ( Netflix ): Chris Hemsworth’s mercenary Tyler Rake is back for another dangerous mission. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Asteroid City ” (Focus Features): Wes Anderson assembles Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman and Jeffrey Wright for a stargazer convention in the mid-century American desert. ( AP’s review.)

    “ The Blackening ” (Lionsgate): This scary movie satire sends a group of Black friends including Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg and X Mayo to a cabin in the woods.

    “ No Hard Feelings ” (Sony): Jennifer Lawrence leads a raunchy comedy about a woman hired by a shy teen’s parents to help him get out of his shell before Princeton. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ” (Lucasfilm): Harrison Ford puts his iconic fedora back on for a fifth outing as Indy in this new adventure directed by James Mangold and co-starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Every Body ” (Focus Features): Oscar-nominated documentarian Julie Cohen turns her lens on three intersex individuals in her latest film. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ” (Universal): Lana Condor (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) lends her voice to this animated action-comedy about a shy teenager trying to survive high school as a part-Kraken. (AP’s review.)

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  • Spy x Family’s Loid Actor Says His Favorite Anime Scene Isn’t In The Manga

    Spy x Family’s Loid Actor Says His Favorite Anime Scene Isn’t In The Manga

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    Wit Studio and CloverWorks’ wholesome yet action-packed new anime series Spy x Family took the world by storm after it debuted last spring. Since its debut, Spy x Family became one of the highest-rated shows on the anime database and social media site MyAnimeList, beating out mega-popular shows like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and even the long-running pirate anime One Piece. And that was with one season under its belt. This is why I had to sleuth my way into interviewing a Japanese voice actor for Spy x Family at Anime Expo and ask him why he thinks the show is such a hit.

    The Anime Dream Team Behind Chainsaw Man

    Spy x Family follows a prominent super spy named Loid as he goes undercover and infiltrates the school of a politician’s son to prevent a war from breaking out between two neighboring countries. To do so, Loid creates a fake family who, unbeknownst to him, have secrets of their own His adopted daughter Anya is a telepath, his wife, Yor, moonlights as the world’s deadliest assassin and their family dog Bond can see the future.

    With season one of Spy x Family in the books and a second season and an original movie, Spy x Family: Code White, on the way later this year, I spoke with Takuya Eguchi, the Japanese voice actor for Loid, at Anime Expo and asked him what it’s like portraying one of the best dads in anime.

    Read More: What To Expect At Anime Expo 2023

    Crunchyroll Collection

    Eguchi’s favorite Spy x Family scene wasn’t in the manga

    Part of what makes Spy x Family such a refreshing anime is its ability to walk the line between being a light-hearted comedy about an odd-couple family and a serious drama about the threat of war. Although the show’s tonal whiplash occasionally makes for a difficult line read for Eguchi, his past experience voicing action scenes that include yelling helps him channel his performance as a soft-spoken father into a rigid spy on a dime.

    Speaking of action scenes, Eguchi revealed that one of his favorite Spy x Family battles from the anime never happened in the manga.

    “My favorite scene is, I think it’s [in] episode five, the episode where Anya runs a castle and Bondman, or Loid, has to go save Princess Anya,” Eguchi said. “It’s in the original manga as well, but in the anime added a lot more scenes for the fans to enjoy.”

    Crunchyroll Collection

    For context, this scene transpires in two panels in the manga whereas in the anime it runs for roughly half the runtime of Spy x Family’s 24-minute episode. The anime even throws in a showdown between Loid and a wine-drunk Yor. Eguchi says this is favorie scene because it showcases Yor and Loid as a “cool” assassin and an “extra cool” spy.

    Read More: Tired Of Battle Anime? Here’s Four Wholesome Shows You Should Check Out

    The best and worst parts of voicing Loid Forger

    Although Eguchi resonates with Loid being a family man, albeit while undercover, Eguchi told me that the most difficult part about portraying Loid is encompassing his talkative super spy persona.

    “The most difficult part is his inner monologue,” Eguchi said via a translator. “He talks a lot.”

    Unlike the manga, which utilizes speech and thought bubbles to give readers a sense of the schemes Loid plots to solve both domestic and global threats, Eguchi said he has a limited amount of time to so say what’s on Loid’s mind. Fans of the show will note that, despite being a know-it-all spy, Loid’s tendency to overthink leads to a comedic of errors with his would-be nuclear family. For example, Loid once thought Yor being in a bad mood had something to do with him failing as a husband when in reality she was trying (and failing) to hide the fact she was shot in the butt while she was on one of her assassin missions. An honest mistake in the Forger household, to be fair.

    Crunchyroll Collection

    Expect even more original scenes in future Spy x Family episodes

    Toward the end of our chat, Eguchi teased that, much like Spy x Family’s first season, season 2 will also include original scenes expanding the source material just like how the anime put “a lot of care” into expanding upon Anya’s castle excursion from the manga.

    “I actually haven’t started recording my lines yet, so I’m also looking forward to what I’m going to see too,” Eguchi said.

    Kotaku is covering everything at Anime Expo 2023, including big announcements at panels and exclusive one-on-one interviews with the industry’s biggest creators. Whether you’re a seasoned anime fan or a newbie, you can keep up with all things Anime Expo 2023 here.

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    Isaiah Colbert

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  • Summer movie season is in full swing. Here’s what’s coming through Labor Day

    Summer movie season is in full swing. Here’s what’s coming through Labor Day

    [ad_1]

    The summer movie season goes into high-gear in July, with the arrival of the seventh “Mission: Impossible” movie followed by the “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” showdown on July 21.

    Not that you have to choose one or the other — as Tom Cruise said on Twitter, “I love a double feature, and it doesn’t get more explosive (or more pink) than the one with Oppenheimer and Barbie.”

    August also promises a new take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and introduces a new DC superhero, Blue Beetle.

    Here’s a month-by-month guide of this summer’s new movies. Keep scrolling for more info and review links for May and June’s releases.

    July 7

    ” Insidious: The Red Door ” (Sony, theaters): Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne are back to scare everyone in the fifth edition.

    “ Joy Ride ” (Lionsgate, theaters): Adele Lim directs this raucous comedy about a friends trip to China to find someone’s birth mother, starring Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu.

    “ The Lesson ” (Bleecker Street, theaters): A young novelist helps an acclaimed author in this thriller with Richard E. Grant.

    “ Biosphere ” (IFC, theaters and VOD): Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown are the last two men on Earth.

    “ Earth Mama ” (A24, theaters): This acclaimed debut from Savannah Leaf focuses on a woman, single and pregnant with two kids in foster care, trying to reclaim her family in the Bay Area.

    July 14

    “ Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part I” (Paramount, theaters, on July 12): Tom Cruise? Death-defying stunts in Venice? The return of Kittridge? What more do you need?

    “ Theater Camp ”(Searchlight, theaters): Musical theater nerds (and comedy fans) will delight in this loving satire of a childhood institution, with Ben Platt and Molly Gordon.

    “ The Miracle Club ” (Sony Pictures Classics, theaters): Lifetime friends (Kathy Bates, Maggie Smith, Agnes O’Casey) in a small Dublin community in 1967 dream of a trip to Lourdes, a town in France where miracles are supposed to happen. Laura Linney co-stars.

    “ 20 Days in Mariupol ” (in theaters in New York): AP’s Mstyslav Chernov directs this documentary, a joint project between The Associated Press and PBS “Frontline,” about the first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in which Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko, became the only international journalists operating in the city. Their coverage won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

    “ Afire ” (Janus Films, theaters): This drama from German director Christian Petzold is set at a vacation home by the Baltic Sea where tensions rise between a writer, a photographer and a mysterious guest (Paula Beer) as a wildfire looms.

    “ They Cloned Tyrone ” (Netflix): John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx lead this mystery caper.

    July 21

    “ Oppenheimer ” (Universal, theaters): Christopher Nolan takes audiences into the mind of the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer ( Cillian Murphy ) as he and his peers build up to the trinity test at Los Alamos.

    “ Barbie ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Margot Robbie plays the world’s most famous doll (as do many others) opposite Ryan Gosling’s Ken in Greta Gerwig’s comedic look at their perfect world.

    “ Stephen Curry: Underrated ” (Apple TV+): Peter Nicks directs a documentary about the four-time NBA champion.

    “ The Beanie Bubble ” (in select theaters; on Apple TV+ on July 28): Zach Galifianakis stars as the man behind Beanie Babies in this comedic drama, co-starring Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan.

    July 28

    “ Haunted Mansion ” (Disney, theaters): A Disney ride comes to life in with the help of Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito.

    “ Talk to Me ” (A24, theaters): A group of friends conjure spirits in this horror starring Sophie Wilde and Joe Bird.

    “ Happiness for Beginners ” (Netflix, on July 27): Ellie Kemper is a newly divorced woman looking to shake things up.

    “ Sympathy for the Devil ” (RLJE Films): Joel Kinnaman is forced to drive a mysterious gunman (Nicolas Cage) in this thriller.

    “ Kokomo City ” (Magnolia): A documentary following four Black transgender sex workers. One of the subjects, Koko Da Doll, was shot and killed in April.

    August 4

    “ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem ” (Paramount, theaters): This animated movie puts the teenage back in the equation with a very funny voice cast including Seth Rogen and John Cena as Bebop and Rocksteady.

    “ Shortcomings ” (Sony Pictures Classics, theaters): Randall Park directs this adaptation of Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel about Asian American friends in the Bay Area starring Sherry Cola as Alice, Ally Maki as Miko and Justin H. Min as Ben.

    “ Meg 2: The Trench ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Jason Statham is back fighting sharks.

    “ Passages ” (Mubi): The relationship of a longtime couple (Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw) is thrown when one begins an affair with a woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos).

    “ A Compassionate Spy ” (Magnolia): Steve James’ documentary about the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project who fed information to the Soviets.

    “Dreamin’ Wild” (Roadside Attractions): Casey Affleck stars in this film about musical duo Donnie and Joe Emerson.

    “ Problemista ” (A24, theaters): Julio Torres plays an aspiring toy designer in this surreal comedy co-starring Tilda Swinton that he also wrote, directed and produced.

    August 11

    “ Gran Turismo ” (Sony, theaters): A gamer gets a chance to drive a professional course in this video game adaptation starring David Harbour and Orlando Bloom.

    “ The Last Voyage of the Demeter ” (Universal, theaters): This supernatural horror film draws from a chapter of “Dracula.”

    “ Heart of Stone ” (Netflix): Gal Gadot played an intelligence operative in this action thriller, with Jamie Dornan.

    “The Eternal Memory” (MTV Documentary Films): This documentary explores a marriage and Alzheimer’s disease.

    “The Pod Generation” (Vertical, theaters): Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in this sci-fi comedy about a new path to parenthood.

    “Jules” (Bleecker Street, theaters): Ben Kingsley stars in this film about a UFO that crashes in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania.

    August 18

    “ Blue Beetle ” (Warner Bros., theaters): Xolo Maridueña plays the DC superhero Jaime Reyes / Blue Beetle in this origin story.

    “ Strays ” (Universal, theaters): Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx voice dogs in this not-animated, R-rated comedy.

    “birth/rebirth” (IFC, theaters): A woman and a morgue technician bring a little girl back to life in this horror.

    “ White Bird ” (Lionsgate, theaters): Helen Mirren tells her grandson, expelled from school for bullying, a story about herself in Nazi-occupied France.

    “Landscape with Invisible Hand” (MGM, theaters): Teens come up with a unique moneymaking scheme in a world taken over by aliens.

    “The Hill” (Briarcliff Entertainment): This baseball drama starring Dennis Quaid is based on the true story of Rickey Hill.

    August 25

    “They Listen” (Sony, theaters): John Cho and Katherine Waterston lead this secretive Blumhouse horror.

    “Golda” (Bleecker Street): Helen Mirren stars in this drama about Golda Meir, the Prime Minister of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

    “ Bottoms ” (MGM, theaters): Two unpopular teenage girls (Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri) start a fight club to impress the cheerleaders they want to lose their virginity to in this parody of the teen sex comedy.

    “The Dive” (RLJE Films): In this suspense pic about two sisters out for a dive, one gets hurt and is trapped underwater.

    “Scrapper” (Kino Lorber, theaters): A 12-year-old girl (Lola Campbell) is living alone in a London flat until her estranged father (Harris Dickinson) shows up.

    “Fremont” (Music Box Films, theaters): A former army translator in Afghanistan (Anaita Wali Zada) relocates to Fremont, California and gets a job at a fortune cookie factory. “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White co-stars.

    September 1

    “ The Equalizer 3 ” (Sony, theaters): Denzel Washington is back as Robert McCall, who is supposed to be retired from the assassin business but things get complicated in Southern Italy.

    ALREADY IN THEATERS AND STREAMING

    “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” (Disney/Marvel): Nine years after the non-comic obsessed world was introduced to Peter Quill, Rocket, Groot and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, the misfits are closing out the trilogy and saying goodbye to director James Gunn, who is now leading rival DC. ( AP’s review.)

    “ What’s Love Got to Do with It? ” (Shout! Studios): Lily James plays a documentary filmmaker whose next project follows her neighbor (Shazad Latif) on his road to an arranged marriage in this charming romantic comedy.

    “ Book Club: The Next Chapter ” (Focus Features): Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen travel to Italy to celebrate an engagement.

    “ The Mother,” ( Netflix ): Jennifer Lopez is an assassin and a mother in this action pic timed to Mother’s Day. (AP’s review here.)

    “ Love Again ” (Sony): Priyanka Chopra Jonas plays a woman mourning the death of her boyfriend who texts his old number not knowing it belongs to someone new (Sam Heughan). Celine Dion (and her music) co-star in this romantic drama.

    “ STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie ” ( AppleTV+ ): Davis Guggenheim helps Michael J. Fox tell his story, from his rise in Hollywood to his Parkinson’s diagnosis and beyond.

    “ Monica ” (IFC): A transgender woman, estranged from her family, goes home to visit her dying mother in this film starring Tracee Lysette and Patricia Clarkson.

    “ The Starling Girl ” (Bleecker Street): Eliza Scanlen plays a 17-year-old girl living in a fundamentalist Christian community in Kentucky whose life changes with the arrival of Lewis Pullman’s charismatic youth pastor.

    “ Fool’s Paradise ” (Roadside Attractions): Charlie Day writes, directs and plays dual roles in this comedic Hollywood satire.

    “ Hypnotic ” (Ketchup Entertainment): Ben Affleck plays a detective whose daughter goes missing in this Robert Rodriguez movie.

    “ It Ain’t Over ” (Sony Pictures Classics): A documentary about Lawrence Peter ‘Yogi’ Berra.

    “Blackberry” (IFC): Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton star in this movie about the rise of the Blackberry. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Fast X ” (Universal): In the tenth installment of the Fast franchise, Jason Momoa joins as the vengeful son of a slain drug lord intent to take out Vin Diesel’s Dom. ( AP’s review.)

    “ White Men Can’t Jump ” (20th Century Studios, streaming on Hulu): Sinqua Walls and Jack Harlow co-star in this remake of the 1992 film, co-written by Kenya Barris and featuring the late Lance Reddick. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Master Gardener ” (Magnolia): Joel Edgerton is a horticulturist in this Paul Schrader drama, co-starring Sigourney Weaver as a wealthy dowager. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Sanctuary ” (Neon): A dark comedy about a dominatrix (Margaret Qualley) and her wealth client (Christopher Abbott).

    “ The Little Mermaid ” (Disney): Halle Bailey plays Ariel in this technically ambitious live-action remake of a recent Disney classic directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) and co-starring Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. ( AP’s review.)

    “ You Hurt My Feelings ” (A24): Nicole Holofcener takes a nuanced and funny look at a white lie that unsettles the marriage between a New York City writer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and a therapist (Tobias Menzies). ( AP’s review.)

    “ About My Father ” (Lionsgate): Stand-up comic Sebastian Maniscalco co-wrote this culture clash movie in which he takes his Italian-American father (Robert De Niro) on a vacation with his wife’s WASPy family. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Victim/Suspect ” ( Netflix ): This documentary explores how law enforcement sometimes indicts victims of sexual assault instead of helping.

    “ The Machine,” (Sony): Stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer brings Mark Hamill into the fray for this action-comedy.

    “ Kandahar ” (Open Road Films): Gerard Butler plays an undercover CIA operative in hostile territory in Afghanistan.

    “ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ” (Sony): Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is back, but with things not going so well in Brooklyn, he opts to visit the multiverse with his old pal Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), where he encounters the Spider-Society. ( AP’s review.)

    “ The Boogeyman ” (20th Century Studios): “It’s the thing that comes for your kids when you’re not paying attention,” David Dastmalchian explains to Chris Messina in this Stephen King adaptation.

    “ Past Lives ” (A24): Already being hailed as one of the best of the year after its Sundance debut, Celine Song’s directorial debut is a decades and continent-spanning romance about two friends separated in childhood who meet 20 years later in New York. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ” (Paramount): Steven Caple Jr directs the seventh Transformers movie, starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback. ( AP’s review.)

    “Flamin’ Hot” ( Hulu, Disney+): Eva Longoria directs this story about Richard Montañez, a janitor at Frito-Lay who came up with the idea for Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Blue Jean ” (Magnolia): It’s 1988 in England and hostilities are mounting towards the LGBTQ community in Georgia Oakley’s BAFTA-nominated directorial debut about a gym teacher (Rosy McEwan) and the arrival of a new student. ( AP’s review.)

    “Daliland” (Magnolia): Mary Harron directs Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dalí.

    “ The Flash ” (Warner Bros.): Batmans past Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton assemble for this standalone Flash movie directed by Andy Muschietti and starring Ezra Miller as the titular superhero. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Elemental ” (Pixar): In Element City, residents include Air, Earth, Water and Fire in the new Pixar original, featuring the voices of Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie and Catherine O’Hara. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Extraction 2 ” ( Netflix ): Chris Hemsworth’s mercenary Tyler Rake is back for another dangerous mission. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Asteroid City ” (Focus Features): Wes Anderson assembles Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman and Jeffrey Wright for a stargazer convention in the mid-century American desert. ( AP’s review.)

    “ The Blackening ” (Lionsgate): This scary movie satire sends a group of Black friends including Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg and X Mayo to a cabin in the woods.

    “ No Hard Feelings ” (Sony): Jennifer Lawrence leads a raunchy comedy about a woman hired by a shy teen’s parents to help him get out of his shell before Princeton. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ” (Lucasfilm): Harrison Ford puts his iconic fedora back on for a fifth outing as Indy in this new adventure directed by James Mangold and co-starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Every Body ” (Focus Features): Oscar-nominated documentarian Julie Cohen turns her lens on three intersex individuals in her latest film. ( AP’s review.)

    “ Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken ” (Universal): Lana Condor (“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”) lends her voice to this animated action-comedy about a shy teenager trying to survive high school as a part-Kraken. (AP’s review.)

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  • Alan Arkin, Oscar-winning ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ actor, dies at 89

    Alan Arkin, Oscar-winning ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ actor, dies at 89

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    LOS ANGELES — Alan Arkin, the wry character actor who demonstrated his versatility in comedy and drama as he received four Academy Award nominations and won an Oscar in 2007 for “Little Miss Sunshine,” has died. He was 89.

    His sons Adam, Matthew and Anthony confirmed their father’s death through the actor’s publicist on Friday. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” they said in a statement.

    A member of Chicago’s famed Second City comedy troupe, Arkin was an immediate success in movies with the Cold War spoof “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming” and peaked late in life with his win as best supporting actor for the surprise 2006 hit “Little Miss Sunshine.” More than 40 years separated his first Oscar nomination, for “The Russians are Coming,” from his nomination for playing a conniving Hollywood producer in the Oscar-winning “Argo.”

    In recent years he starred opposite Michael Douglas in the Netflix comedy series “The Kominsky Method,” a role that earned him two Emmy nominations.

    Arkin once joked to The Associated Press that the beauty of being a character actor was not having to take his clothes off for a role. He wasn’t a sex symbol or superstar, but was rarely out of work, appearing in more than 100 TV and feature films. His trademarks were likability, relatability and complete immersion in his roles, no matter how unusual, whether playing a Russian submarine officer in “The Russians are Coming” who struggles to communicate with the equally jittery Americans, or standing out as the foul-mouthed, drug-addicted grandfather in “Little Miss Sunshine.”

    “Alan’s never had an identifiable screen personality because he just disappears into his characters,” director Norman Jewison of “The Russians are Coming” once observed. “His accents are impeccable, and he’s even able to change his looks. … He’s always been underestimated, partly because he’s never been in service of his own success.”

    While still with Second City, Arkin was chosen by Carl Reiner to play the young protagonist in the 1963 Broadway play “Enter Laughing,” based on Reiner’s semi-autobiographical novel.

    He attracted strong reviews and the notice of Jewison, who was preparing to direct a 1966 comedy about a Russian sub that creates a panic when it ventures too close to a small New England town. In Arkin’s next major film, he proved he could also play a villain, however reluctantly. Arkin starred in “Wait Until Dark” as a vicious drug dealer who holds a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) captive in her own apartment, believing a drug shipment is hidden there.

    He recalled in a 1998 interview how difficult it was to terrorize Hepburn’s character.

    “Just awful,” he said. “She was an exquisite lady, so being mean to her was hard.”

    1968’s “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” in which he played a sensitive man who could not hear or speak, again elevated Arkin’s status in Hollywood. He starred as the bumbling French detective in “Inspector Clouseau” that same year, but the film would become overlooked in favor of Peter Sellers’ Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” movies.

    Arkin’s career as a character actor continued to blossom when Mike Nichols, a fellow Second City alumnus, cast him in the starring role as Rossarian, the victim of wartime red tape in 1970’s “Catch-22,” based on Joseph Heller’s million-selling novel. Through the years, Arkin turned up in such favorites as “Edward Scissorhands,” playing Johnny Depp’s neighbor; and in the film version of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” as a dogged real estate salesman. He and Reiner played brothers, one successful (Reiner), one struggling (Arkin), in the 1998 film “The Slums of Beverly Hills.”

    “I used to think that my stuff had a lot of variety. But I realized that for the first twenty years or so, most of the characters I played were outsiders, strangers to their environment, foreigners in one way or another,” he told The Associated Press in 2007.

    “As I started to get more and more comfortable with myself, that started to shift. I got one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever gotten from someone a few days ago. They said that they thought my characters were very often the heart, the moral center of a film. I didn’t particularly understand it, but I liked it; it made me happy.”

    Other recent credits included “Going in Style,” a 2017 remake featuring fellow Oscar winners Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, and “The Kominsky Method.” He played a Hollywood talent agent and friend of Douglas’ character, a once-promising actor who ran an acting school after his career sputtered.

    Arkin also directed the film version of Jules Feiffer’s 1971 dark comedy “Little Murders” and Neil Simon’s 1972 play about bickering old vaudeville partners, “The Sunshine Boys.” On television, Arkin appeared in the short-lived series “Fay” and “Harry” and played a night court judge in Sidney Lumet’s drama series “100 Centre Street” on A&E. He also wrote several books for children.

    Born in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, he and his family, which included two younger brothers, moved to Los Angeles when he was 11. His parents found jobs as teachers, but were fired during the post-World War II Red Scare because they were Communists.

    “We were dirt poor so I couldn’t afford to go to the movies often,” he told the AP in 1998. “But I went whenever I could and focused in on movies, as they were more important than anything in my life.”

    He studied acting at Los Angeles City College; California State University, Los Angeles; and Bennington College in Vermont, where he earned a scholarship to the formerly all-girls school.

    He married a fellow student, Jeremy Yaffe, and they had two sons, Adam and Matthew.

    After he and Yaffe divorced in 1961, Arkin married actress-writer Barbara Dana, and they had a son, Anthony. All three sons became actors: Adam starred in the TV series “Chicago Hope.”

    “It was certainly nothing that I pushed them into,” Arkin said in 1998. “It made absolutely no difference to me what they did, as long as it allowed them to grow.”

    Arkin began his entertainment career as an organizer and singer with The Tarriers, a group that briefly rode the folk musical revival wave of the late 1950s. Later, he turned to stage acting, off-Broadway and always in dramatic roles.

    At Second City, he worked with Nichols, Elaine May, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara and others in creating intellectual, high-speed impromptu riffs the fads and follies of the day.

    “I never knew that I could be funny until I joined Second City,” he said.

    ___

    The late AP Entertainment writer Bob Thomas provided biographical material for this story.

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  • Taika Waititi’s soccer pic ‘Next Goal Wins’ set for Toronto Film Festival premiere

    Taika Waititi’s soccer pic ‘Next Goal Wins’ set for Toronto Film Festival premiere

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    Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy “Next Goal Wins” will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall, organizers said Wednesday

    This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows Michael Fassbender, center, in a scene from “Next Goal Wins,” which will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. (Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Searchlight Pictures via AP)

    The Associated Press

    Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy “ Next Goal Wins ” will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall, organizers said Wednesday.

    The Searchlight Pictures film is based on a true story and stars Michael Fassbender as a Dutch-American soccer coach assigned to help the struggling American Samoa national team in its quest to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The team at that point was best known for suffering the worst loss in international football history — a 31 to 0 game against Australia in 2001.

    Waititi and co-writer Iain Morris based the film off of a 2014 British documentary of the same name, from Mike Brett and Steve Jamison, which chronicled the comeback attempt. The new film also stars Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, Will Arnett and Elisabeth Moss.

    “Next Goal Wins” is the first major Hollywood film this year to stake its claim on the busy fall film festival season, where many studios debut awards hopefuls. Waititi’s last film to premiere at Toronto, “Jojo Rabbit,” went on to win the best screenplay award at the Oscars. TIFF’s 48th edition runs from Sept. 7 to Sept. 17.

    “We’re thrilled to welcome Taika back to the festival and share his audacious take on the most popular sport in the world,” said TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey in a statement. “’Next Goal Wins’ is perfect for TIFF fans of the beautiful game looking for their football fix until the 2024 World Cup arrives.”

    Searchlight Pictures will release “Next Goal Wins” in theaters on Nov. 17.

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  • In ‘No Hard Feelings,’ Jennifer Lawrence relishes playing a ‘messy and chaotic’ character

    In ‘No Hard Feelings,’ Jennifer Lawrence relishes playing a ‘messy and chaotic’ character

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    LOS ANGELES — It’s a beloved rom-com trope: an irresponsible, irreverent and seemingly irredeemable man falls in love with a woman, setting him on the path to finally get his act together.

    But in “No Hard Feelings,” which hits theaters Friday, director Gene Stupnitsky sought to subvert those gendered expectations, with Jennifer Lawrence instead playing his dirtbag protagonist.

    “We always described her as someone who cuts corners, who is lazy, doesn’t have great nutrition, likes to smoke pot and drink and doesn’t take anything too seriously,” he said of the character he and co-writer, John Phillips, created. “A guy doing it, that is well-trodden territory. It’s not very interesting.”

    “No Hard Feelings” follows Lawrence’s Maddie as she conspires with the parents of an awkward 19-year-old (Andrew Barth Feldman) to have sex with him before he leaves for college in exchange for a car. He’s left in the dark about the scheme, leaving Maddie to try to seduce the shy brainiac more than a decade her junior.

    Lawrence said the “messy and chaotic” character’s appeal were one of the things that drew her to the film. “She was just so determined and there was no way to really stop her from achieving what she was going to achieve.”

    The film is based on an actual Craigslist post the producers stumbled upon years ago. In the film a similar message becomes the catalyst for Maddie — desperate to continue working as a Uber driver as a last-ditch effort to keep the house her late mother left her — to respond.

    Stupnitsky said the post, in addition to being very funny, was ripe for exploring a host of timely topics.

    “Helicopter parents are a real thing. And I think sex workers were in the news a lot. And just all these ideas were coming together, you know, class differences, all of it,” Stupnitsky, an Emmy-nominated writer on “The Office” who directed 2019’s “Good Boys” and co-wrote the R-rated Cameron Diaz comedy “Bad Teacher,” said. “It’s more just asking questions and bringing up these different ideas. I don’t even know how I feel about everything, but I think my favorite comedies usually go someplace deeper.”

    Although not quite a romcom, the film employs many of the genre’s cliches, including raunchy humor, awkward date scenarios and even some nudity, although not in the way audiences might expect.

    “I didn’t have any reservations,” Lawrence said laughing when asked about her feelings toward nude scenes, something she was candidly reluctant about when her role in the 2018 thriller, “Red Sparrow” required it. “Once you do it, then that’s done.”

    Flurries of surprise and anticipation for the Oscar winner’s raunchy comedy debut abounded after the first “No Hard Feelings” trailer dropped, betraying a subtle assumption that perhaps this kind of movie would be beneath her.

    “I don’t know,” she said of why people might not expect her to do a comedy. “You go about it the same way. It wouldn’t be funny if you were like, ‘I’m gonna make a joke now.’ You have to really believe what you’re saying, so the process is the same.”

    Lawrence has long wanted to do a comedy and has received no shortage of scripts, but said she found none of them funny enough — that is until Stupnitsky handed her this one.

    “I’ve known her socially over the years and I know how funny she is, and I know how much she loves comedy,” Stupnitsky said. “She’s done satire and comedy dramas, but a pure, straight up R-rated comedy, I just selfishly wanted her for myself.”

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  • ‘No Hard Feelings’ Is a Perfect Reintroduction to Jennifer Lawrence

    ‘No Hard Feelings’ Is a Perfect Reintroduction to Jennifer Lawrence

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    But while Maddie isn’t Lawrence, and Lawrence isn’t Maddie, she’s a fantastic reintroduction to the actor. Director David O. Russell was famous for casting Lawrence as characters she was logically way too young to play, in Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Joy. But in No Hard Feelings, we finally get to see the actor playing her own age, 32. (Or, as her character puts it: She “turned 29…last year…two years ago.”) She also gets to throw herself wholeheartedly into the physical comedy she excels at. (Nobody gets maced for laughs like Jennifer Lawrence, and let’s not even talk about that throat punch.) At the same time, she’s delivering a dramatic performance that rings true. As it turns out, you don’t need to be so serious to be taken seriously.

    Maybe if that script Lawrence said she was writing with Amy Schumer back in the day—a comedy starring the two as sisters that Schumer described as “funny,” “dirty,” and “real”—had come to fruition, we could have seen this side of Lawrence on the big screen sooner. Maybe the success of a Lawrence-starring straight comedy (unlike the knowing satire of 2021’s Don’t Look Up) and her producing arm means the script will resurface and we’ll finally get to see it. Better late than never. In the meantime, No Hard Feelings feels like a movie that Lawrence would actually want to watch; she’s having fun, and it shows.

    No Hard Feelings can also be read as a reclamation of sorts. In 2014, Lawrence was among a group of celebrities whose information was hacked, and nude photos of her were posted online without her permission. A few months after the crime, she told Vanity Fair that she’d thought about making a statement, but nothing felt right or fair. “I started to write an apology, but I don’t have anything to say I’m sorry for,” she said. It was a violation.

    In No Hard Feelings, Lawrence is nude during the aforementioned beach ass-whooping—a shocking moment in the age of careful cut-arounds and implied nudity. When her private photos were hacked, Lawrence told VF, she felt “like a piece of meat that’s being passed around for a profit.” Now the nudity is coming on her own terms. Lawrence is a producer of No Hard Feelings; nobody bullied her into making this scene. She’s fully naked, she’s pissed, and she looks strong.

    Even off-screen, Lawrence seems to be thriving in her new freedom to be goofy. At the film’s New York premiere, she stopped by the overflow theater where lowly members of the press, myself included, were watching the film, far removed from all the glam down the hall. “Enjoy da mooooovie!” she bellowed over her shoulder in a silly voice as she exited the theater and the lights went down.

    Certainly, there’s no question about whether Lawrence enjoyed it.

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    Kase Wickman

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  • Dewayne Perkins Is Breaking New Ground With ‘The Blackening’

    Dewayne Perkins Is Breaking New Ground With ‘The Blackening’

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    The first time Dewayne Perkins watched Candyman with his family as a child in Chicago, the power went out. “My father, being a big Black man, was standing in the hallway with just his silhouette,” Perkins tells me while sipping a watermelon margarita at the 1 Hotel Central Park. “I was like, “Oh, it’s Candyman. This is the end for all. Thank you so much, family. It’s been a good time, my eight years of life.”

    But what might have been a traumatic experience for an average eight-year-old gave Perkins a lifelong love of the genre, a love that’s currently paying dividends. Currently playing in theaters, his first feature film, The Blackening, finds a group of Black friends beset by a Saw-style killer as they celebrate Juneteenth in a cabin in the woods. Perkins cowrote the film with Girls Trip scribe Tracy Oliver and stars in the **Tim Story–**directed film based on a sketch that he wrote in Chicago in 2016 for a show called “Afrofuturism” at Second City.

    “I was part of an all-Black sketch group, and we needed an opener scene,” he says. “I was like, Okay, I really want to write something that speaks to Blackness and this cast is all Black, but I really want to speak to the diversity within Blackness.” He landed on the well-worn trope of the Black person always getting killed off first in horror movies, like The Shining, Scream 2, and, as it turns out, Candyman. The premise revealed itself at once: If everyone is Black, who dies first?

    “We’d have to have some kind of system to dictate who’s the first to go, and how will we quantify Blackness,” Perkins says. “But I wanted to do it by forcing the Black people to say what they think is not Black in order to show that, Oh, no matter what we do, you’re Black no matter what. That’s the whole point.”

    That point clearly resonated with audiences as Perkins’s idea grew from a Second City sketch into a theatrical production at DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theater, into a viral Comedy Central sketch via Perkins’s improv group, 3Peat. “It was put on World Star Hip Hop, and I was like, Oh, no, what is this going to be?,” Perkins says. “Then, I looked at the comments because I’m a masochist, and there was this one comment that was like, ‘These f—–s are funny.’ And I was like, We won!”

    A queer comedian who’s written for a number of series including Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the critically beloved Saved by the Bell reboot, and The Amber Ruffin Show, Perkins intentionally used familiar archetypes—the party girl, the reformed thug, the gay best friend—in creating the seven friends, played by Perkins, X Mayo, Melvin Gregg, Grace Byers, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, and Jermaine Fowler. “At the beginning of the film, you’re like, Oh, these are tropes. Each of these characters are not real. They are a version of a character that we’ve seen in movies,” he says. “The whole film is breaking away the perception of who we think these people are. By the end of the film, we’re like, These are not tropes. These are people. We just have not allowed these people to have the space to be real, to get to know them, because they are usually used to amplify someone else’s narrative or as a joke.”

    Take the character Perkins wrote for himself, also named Dewayne, the gay best friend of Robertson’s Lisa. “That is a trope, and I wanted to give space to that person,” Perkins says. “A gay best friend—that’s a person. I’m many people’s gay best friend. That relationship is worth space in the plot. It should not be a side plot.” Perkins says the fictional Dewayne “is the manifestation of the version of representation I wanted when I was younger,” but is quick to point out the differences between himself and his fictional counterpart. “I’m more chill generally than the character,” he says. “But I very consciously wanted to give the character the space to just exist fully, and really just speak to and prioritize his feelings.”

    Another difference between real Dewayne and The Blackening’s Dewayne? “I’m not going to no cabin,” Perkins quips.

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  • ‘The Flash’ opens to $55 million, a step off the typical superhero pace

    ‘The Flash’ opens to $55 million, a step off the typical superhero pace

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    DC and Warner Bros.’ long-in-the-works superhero movie “The Flash” opened to $55 million in its first three days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

    Though a fair amount of money by normal standards, a sizable jump from DC’s last release, the “Shazam!” sequel, and enough for a first place start, it’s also muted by superhero standards where $100 million debut weekends are almost commonplace.

    It was a crowded weekend at the multiplex overall. In addition to “The Flash” there was the new Pixar family film “Elemental” and the horror-comedy “The Blackening.” The only big win was Wes Anderson’s starry “Asteroid City” which earned $720,000 from just six theaters and the distinction of having the highest per-theater average ($132,211) since the start of the pandemic.

    “The Flash” faced more complications than marketplace conditions. It has been in the headlines often over the past year, not because of the movie itself but because of its star Ezra Miller’s off-screen troubles, including arrests, erratic behavior and accusations of misconduct. Miller has apologized and said they are seeking mental health treatment. They also bowed out of participating in the normal publicity circuit, except for the premiere.

    The studio’s leadership remained bullish on releasing their $200 million movie, however, confident in its quality and importance to future DC Studios storylines. The movie introduces the multiverse, which allowed for the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman in a movie that also had Ben Affleck’s Batman.

    Going into the weekend analysts expected “The Flash” to earn at least $70 million in its first three days, playing in 4,234 locations domestically. Now, it’s projected to net out with $64 million in its first four, including Monday’s Juneteenth holiday. Internationally, it made $75 million, giving it a $139 million global start.

    Critics were mixed but more positive than not, with a 67% on Rotten Tomatoes. AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote in her review that despite some “breezily clever and entertaining” moments, “the final act bogs down in what feels like an endless, generic CGI battle and a kitchen-sink resolution.”

    Audiences polled for CinemaScore only gave the film a B, which has not historically been great news for word-of-mouth potential and longevity. But there is a bit of a gap in the schedule before the next major blockbuster comes in “ Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which opens on June 30. Next week’s biggest offering is the R-rated Jennifer Lawrence comedy “ No Hard Feelings ” and the nationwide expansion of “Asteroid City.”

    Second place went to “Elemental” with an estimated $29.5 million from 4,035 locations in North America – a new low for Pixar’s three-day openings. Before, that title belonged to “The Good Dinosaur” and “Onward,” which both debuted to $39 million. “

    “Elemental” was greeted positively by critics, with a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences (A CinemaScore). AP’s Jake Coyle wrote that it’s “probably in the lower half” of the Pixar cannon but ”sincere and clever, with a splash of dazzle,” it, “comes closer to rekindling some of the old Pixar magic than some recent entries. ” Including $15 million from 17 international territories, “Elemental” launched to $44.5 million globally.

    “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” was a very close third, in its third weekend, with $27.8 million. Sony is projecting that its domestic total will have reached $285 million through Monday.

    “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” dropped a steep 67% in its second weekend, adding $20 million to take fourth place. “The Little Mermaid” settled into fifth place with $11.6 million in its fourth weekend.

    “The Blackening” was the other big release this weekend – a bit of counterprogramming to the bigger branded releases with an original horror-comedy about a group of friends, who are Black, who get together for a weekend away and find themselves on the run from a killer. Lionsgate and MRC acquired the $5 million movie from director Tim Story after it debuted to positive reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival. Released in 1,775 theaters, “The Blackening” made an estimated $6 million.

    —-

    Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.

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  • The Blackening’s X Mayo Does Not Mess With Demons

    The Blackening’s X Mayo Does Not Mess With Demons

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    So I did that, and then we had a callback, and at the callback I killed and it was on Zoom. And then I hit up Dewayne. I had hit him on Instagram and I was like, “Bitch, oh my God, I’m Shanika.” And he was like, “You playing with me, bitch? You know they don’t tell me nothing.” So I sent him the screenshot of the deal, that it was closed. I was like, “Boo, it’s me.” And he was like, “Oh, my God.” And we were so excited because Dewayne is my baby. So to go into this unique experience with him was really exciting.

    It’s so rare to see a horror film with an all-Black cast. I loved the diverse array of Black characters that were allowed to exist on screen. Normally in horror movies, there’s one Black person, and they get killed first.

    Yes, and it’s one trope of a Black person even then. Although we have seven archetypes of Black people [in The Blackening], we still didn’t represent all of us. There’s too many motherfuckers, right? There’s too many nuances.

    I said this before, and I’ll say it again: the writing would not be as strong had it not been written by a Black queer man and a Black woman. We are the leaders of the pack of every fucking march—it don’t have nothing to do with us. Child, it could be eczema. We’re like, “Guys, we got to get new cream. Everybody’s peeling. What is happening?” [laughs].

    You have a pretty harrowing night swimming scene in the film. What was it like to shoot it?

    Baby, I was on my cycle at 4:00 AM in the lake. And you know why I did it? Because I feel sometimes when you see certain stunts, and you know that’s not the person, that takes you out of it. And I know how to swim. I just was like, ‘No, we’re going to dispel that fucking myth. Fuck you. I’m going to fucking swim.’ They had a whole thing of fresh, alkaline water in a separate trailer so that I could shower right after. It was a man-made lake near Dodger Stadium. It was green. was just treading, going scene after scene after scene. That water was so heavy.

    But I wanted to. I was like, this is for the Black girls who swim. And also to dispel the myth. Like, fuck that: No, we are in the water. We’re swimming. Dewayne asked me today, he was like, “Did Shanika know how to swim?” I said, “No, it’s instinctual.” She’s like, “Bitch, we gotta get out.”

    Were you a horror movie person growing up?

    No. Don’t play with demons. No, I don’t like it. And it really fucks with my brain. And you would think because of that I don’t fuck with true crime, but I’m obsessed. But yeah, I did not fuck with horror.

    What do you want people to take from The Blackening?

    What I want people to take from this is that they had a good-ass time. They laughed their ass off and they saw themselves on screen, or an archetype of themselves on screen. And that they realize how essential it is to support Black art. Because there is something called symbolic annihilation. If we don’t see ourselves, we don’t see the value in ourselves. And if you are white, please, please, if you want to support us, give up power. Because it’s systemic. It’s as simple as that.

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    Chris Murphy

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  • The show must go on: Putting on a Tony Awards telecast during a writers’ strike

    The show must go on: Putting on a Tony Awards telecast during a writers’ strike

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — New location? No script? No rehearsal? No sweat.

    Welcome to the 2023 Tony Awards, a show with an extra jolt of electricity this time due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

    Unpredictability has been inserted into what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The strike has left Broadway’s biggest night without a script, in a new venue far from the theater district.

    A 1 1/2-hour pre-show on Pluto TV from 6:30-8 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, will then throw to the three-hour main event led by Ariana DeBose on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. Eastern.

    A total of 26 Tony Awards will be handed out Sunday for a season that had 40 new productions — 15 musicals, 24 plays and one special engagement during the first post-pandemic full season.

    Broadway had some very serious works this season, like the new plays “Cost of Living” and “The Kite Runner” and revivals of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Death of a Salesman,” led by Wendell Pierce. A revival of “Parade,” about the lynching of a Jewish businessman starring Ben Platt, was also well received.

    The season also had an element of the fantastical in a puppet-heavy adaptation of the lifeboat book “Life of Pi,” satire in “The Thanksgiving Play” and pure silliness in “Shucked” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.”

    “Just like the the country and the world is resetting, I think our storytelling and how we get our stories out there is resetting as well,” said Kenny Leon, who directed “Topdog/ Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders” this season. “The positive I take away is the variety of the material, from a Black-led ‘Death of a Salesman’ to new plays like ‘KPOP’ and ‘Ain’t No Mo’’ and ‘Leopoldstadt’ and ‘Prima Facie.’ I felt the diversity in almost every way — racially, generationally.”

    “Some Like It Hot,” a musical adaptation of the classic cross-dressing movie comedy that starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, goes into the night with a leading 13 Tony Award nominations. For the top crown, it is pitted against “& Juliet,” which reimagines “Romeo and Juliet” and adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades, “New York, New York,” which combined two generations of Broadway royalty in John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and “Shucked,” a lightweight musical comedy studded with corn puns.

    The critical musical darling and intimate, funny-sad “Kimberly Akimbo,” with Victoria Clark playing a teen who ages four times faster than the average human, rounds out the best musical category.

    The best new play category is a competition among Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, and “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” set at a Black family’s barbecue in the modern South.

    The rest of the category is made up of “Ain’t No Mo,’” the short-lived but critical applauded work by playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Between Riverside and Crazy” and “Cost of Living,” parallel stories of two caretakers and their respective patients.

    The answers to some intriguing questions pend: Can Audra McDonald ( “Ohio State Murders” ) extend her record as the most awarded actor in Tony Awards history? Will either J. Harrison Ghee (“Some Like It Hot”) or Alex Newell (“Shucked”) become the first nonbinary person to win a Tony for acting? (Last year, “Six” composer and writer Toby Marlow became the first out nonbinary winner.)

    Performances are slated from the casts of “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Parade,” “Shucked,” “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

    In addition, Joaquina Kalukango — the winner of last year’s Tony for best lead actress in a musical — will sing, as will the casts from “A Beautiful Noise” and “Funny Girl.” That means there’ll be plenty of star power, from Josh Groban to Lea Michele.

    It will all take place at the United Palace Theatre, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan — a new venue for the ceremony, many miles from Times Square and the theater district.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

    ___

    For more coverage of the 2023 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards

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  • The show must go on: Putting on a Tony Awards telecast during a writers’ strike

    The show must go on: Putting on a Tony Awards telecast during a writers’ strike

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — New location? No script? No rehearsal? No sweat.

    Welcome to the 2023 Tony Awards, a show with an extra jolt of electricity this time due to the Hollywood writers’ strike.

    Unpredictability has been inserted into what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The strike has left Broadway’s biggest night without a script, in a new venue far from the theater district.

    A 1 1/2-hour pre-show on Pluto TV from 6:30-8 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, will then throw to the three-hour main event led by Ariana DeBose on CBS and Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. Eastern.

    A total of 26 Tony Awards will be handed out Sunday for a season that had 40 new productions — 15 musicals, 24 plays and one special engagement during the first post-pandemic full season.

    Broadway had some very serious works this season, like the new plays “Cost of Living” and “The Kite Runner” and revivals of “Topdog/Underdog” and “Death of a Salesman,” led by Wendell Pierce. A revival of “Parade,” about the lynching of a Jewish businessman starring Ben Platt, was also well received.

    The season also had an element of the fantastical in a puppet-heavy adaptation of the lifeboat book “Life of Pi,” satire in “The Thanksgiving Play” and pure silliness in “Shucked” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong.”

    “Just like the the country and the world is resetting, I think our storytelling and how we get our stories out there is resetting as well,” said Kenny Leon, who directed “Topdog/ Underdog” and “Ohio State Murders” this season. “The positive I take away is the variety of the material, from a Black-led ‘Death of a Salesman’ to new plays like ‘KPOP’ and ‘Ain’t No Mo’’ and ‘Leopoldstadt’ and ‘Prima Facie.’ I felt the diversity in almost every way — racially, generationally.”

    “Some Like It Hot,” a musical adaptation of the classic cross-dressing movie comedy that starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, goes into the night with a leading 13 Tony Award nominations. For the top crown, it is pitted against “& Juliet,” which reimagines “Romeo and Juliet” and adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades, “New York, New York,” which combined two generations of Broadway royalty in John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and “Shucked,” a lightweight musical comedy studded with corn puns.

    The critical musical darling and intimate, funny-sad “Kimberly Akimbo,” with Victoria Clark playing a teen who ages four times faster than the average human, rounds out the best musical category.

    The best new play category is a competition among Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt,” which explores Jewish identity with an intergenerational story, and “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” set at a Black family’s barbecue in the modern South.

    The rest of the category is made up of “Ain’t No Mo,’” the short-lived but critical applauded work by playwright and actor Jordan E. Cooper, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Between Riverside and Crazy” and “Cost of Living,” parallel stories of two caretakers and their respective patients.

    The answers to some intriguing questions pend: Can Audra McDonald ( “Ohio State Murders” ) extend her record as the most awarded actor in Tony Awards history? Will either J. Harrison Ghee (“Some Like It Hot”) or Alex Newell (“Shucked”) become the first nonbinary person to win a Tony for acting? (Last year, “Six” composer and writer Toby Marlow became the first out nonbinary winner.)

    Performances are slated from the casts of “Camelot,” “Into the Woods,” “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Parade,” “Shucked,” “Some Like It Hot” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

    In addition, Joaquina Kalukango — the winner of last year’s Tony for best lead actress in a musical — will sing, as will the casts from “A Beautiful Noise” and “Funny Girl.” That means there’ll be plenty of star power, from Josh Groban to Lea Michele.

    It will all take place at the United Palace Theatre, in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan — a new venue for the ceremony, many miles from Times Square and the theater district.

    ___

    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

    ___

    For more coverage of the 2023 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards

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  • Chelsea Peretti on her directorial debut ‘First Time Female Director,’ premiering at Tribeca

    Chelsea Peretti on her directorial debut ‘First Time Female Director,’ premiering at Tribeca

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    NEW YORK — Chelsea Peretti plays a first-time director in her directorial debut: “First Time Female Director.”

    The film premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival takes an acutely meta premise in lampooning the tumultuous experience of an inexperienced woman brought in to a direct a play at a small, local theater in Glendale, California, after its original male director is accused of misconduct.

    In one scene, while Peretti’s character bangs a trash can lid and shouts “Learn your blocking,” a cast member grumbles, “We replaced a predator with a female disaster.”

    Things went far smoother for Peretti, the 45-year-old comedian and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” star, during her first time behind the camera. “First Time Female Director,” which is up for sale at Tribeca, brings together a cast of funny people, including Megan Mullally, Kate Berlant, Andy Richter and Megan Stalter, along with cameos from Amy Poehler (a producer) and Peretti’s husband, Jordan Peele.

    “It was like a crazy summer camp as an adult,” Peretti says.

    “First Time Female Director” takes a satire of small-town theater and puts it in the context of a post-#MeToo entertainment world. For Peretti, it was a way to make something unabashedly silly with a little commentary on some of the shifts she’s experienced in recent years in Hollywood, she told The Associated Press in an interview.

    AP: Where did the idea for this begin?

    PERETTI: Weirdly, it started from me as sort of challenging myself to come up with something by booking a UCB slot years ago, and just forcing myself. I wanted to do a fake excerpt from a play. And I thought it would be funny to then have like a pretentious Q&A about it with the cast, and act like we’re a theater group and this is part of a real play. I went to so much theater as a young person. I was very intimately a lover of theater. But also, anything I love is also fair game to make fun of.

    AP: In the upheaval of the entertainment industry in the wake of #MeToo, were there things in how Hollywood responded that struck you as funny?

    PERETTI: Well, 100%. I think some things have felt like they moved so fast. Most of my career there was an absolute misogynistic tone in the response to what I was doing. And then one day all of a sudden there was shock and pearl clutching that these things are happening. And I’m like: “Where were you for the last 20 years? Where were you for all my YouTube comments that I’ve endured?” It’s been such a whirlwind that I was trying to process it in this project.

    AP: A few years ago on “Conan,” you joked about noticing an uptick in the audience for your stand-up special because viewers were looking for comedy from “people who aren’t rapists.”

    PERETTI: I do remember saying that. There were so many comedians that were outed for varying levels of horrific misogyny that I started really contemplating the last 20 years of my life, going: “Wow, I was trying to get a pat on the head from a lot of these people. I was being told to emulate half these people.” It was a revelation and it’s been so inspiring, people like Megan Stalter who are this younger generation. I was told never dress sexy when you’re doing stand-up. I’m watching all these younger women break all these rules and having the time of their lives. That’s the way to do it, you know? So it’s been such a period of reflection. And obviously the pandemic was this pause button in which you could really reflect on, “Wow, I was on a sitcom! That’s cool.” And: “Whoa, my stand-up life was tumultuous in many ways.”

    AP: You kind of hold a funhouse mirror up that tumult in “First Time Film Director.” Even what the audiences in the film cheer for is kind of a joke.

    PERETTI: When I started stand-up, I was told the audience is never wrong. And I have to say I disagree. I think the audience is wrong sometimes. I remember going to Carolines on Broadway and having a joke that I was really excited to work on and going up and just absolutely bombing. Now, probably that was my fault. But then I remember a guy going up after me and doing a bit about double-sided dildos and just destroying. I was going: “I don’t know if they are right.” Andy Warhol was right that everyone’s famous now. All these comedians have podcast empires. Everyone is preaching to their own choir in a way.

    AP: Yet instead of skewering some of the male comedians you were thinking about, you mostly make fun of yourself in the film.

    PERETTI: (Laughs) Well, this is a recurring theme for me. Like, it’s not fun satirizing Trump. It’s more fun satirizing people that you know intimately and love. I would have a really hard time like writing about a businessman. Speaking of another adage, write what you know. I know self-doubt. I know failure. I know feeling like people don’t like me.

    AP: But I gather your experience directing went better than your character’s?

    PERETTI: I really loved it. I often feel that, when you’re being directed as a comedy actor, that directors try to keep you in line a little bit. Like, if you have a big idea, they almost want you to rein it in. When some of these actors on this movie had ideas, I was like: “Let’s do it!” And so many of them were brilliant. As a rule, every comedian I know holds these strange obsessions. Heather Lawless was like: “Can I have Band-aids on my finger when I’m driving?” And Jermaine Fowler was like, “Can I roll around in a pile of cords?” And I’m like, “Yeah!” I just love saying yes to people.

    AP: You seem quite game to try new things, like film directing, or making a coffee-themed concept album.

    PERETTI: Sometimes before doing standup, I get really anxious a lot of times, especially in new venues. And I would be backstage and I just go, “F—- it.” I feel like you just have to have this part of you that says, “F—- it.” I always want to be like trying new things and I always want to be growing. That’s the fun of being creative to me. And that doesn’t mean that all these ideas work. But I love spontaneity and following inspiration and seeing what happens.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Chelsea Handler Reveals Membership in the “Surprise, a Three-Way and Subsequent Hookups With a Masseuse Led to a Breakup” Club

    Chelsea Handler Reveals Membership in the “Surprise, a Three-Way and Subsequent Hookups With a Masseuse Led to a Breakup” Club

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    Let’s play a counting game, shall we?

    One: There is one comedian named Chelsea Handler. 

    Two: Two people are in a romantic relationship: Handler and former NBC Broadcasting chairman Ted Harbert. (Ed note: This was back from 2006 to 2010, but let’s not get carried away with such large numbers just yet.) 

    Three: Handler and Harbert had a threesome with their female masseuse. 

    Several: Handler hooked up with the masseuse several more times after their initial encounter, which is “when I knew it was time to break up with the guy,” Handler told Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM radio show Thursday.

    OK, so maybe we skipped a few digits, but the premise is there, right? 

    Handler, 48, dropped the decade-old tea when Cohen asked her if she’d ever dated a woman. “I’ve slept with a woman, but I haven’t dated a woman, no,” she responded. She then explained that she’d had a threesome with her boyfriend at the time and another woman, calling it “fun” and said, “I was very turned on by this woman, I ended up hooking up with her several times without the guy that I was dating.” She then realized that it was probably not such a great sign for her relationship that she was more attracted to the guest star than her then-boyfriend. 

    She then named Harbert specifically as the boyfriend in question, before saying that she hadn’t told him that she’d hooked up with their masseuse beyond the threesome. 

    “I don’t think I ever revealed that, but hopefully he’s listening now,” she said, then casually discussed how she’s pretty sure Harbert and his wife are in Portugal, building a new house. 

    Handler began hosting her E! talk show, Chelsea Lately, in 2007, then later began dating Harbert, who was technically her boss as the head of the network umbrella. In 2012, she told Marie Claire that she and Harbert had broken up because they couldn’t separate work and pleasure. 

    “I would come home from work, and Ted would be like, ‘Do you want to watch your show?’ and I’d be like, ‘No, I just came from my show. That’s the last thing I’d want to do,’” she said. “That was the reason it didn’t work out, ultimately. I think.”

    And as for those who share late comedian Joan Rivers’ belief that Handler “made it on her back, fucking the president…of the network,” as she said in 2012 on a Howard Stern appearance, here’s another thing you can count on: Handler doesn’t care.

    “Not really,” Handler said to Cohen when asked if the speculation bothered her. “That stuff doesn’t matter if it’s not true. Obviously, I’ve had a career now for like 25 years, I don’t really care if anyone thinks that.”

    VF wasn’t able to reach Harbert for comment and NBC did not immediately return a request for comment. 

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    Kase Wickman

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  • How Failing as a Stand-up Comic Made Me a Better Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur

    How Failing as a Stand-up Comic Made Me a Better Entrepreneur | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In the middle of a quarter-life crisis, I began evaluating my professional career choices. While working a day job as a sales executive at a very large and successful tech company, I became jaded by corporate jargon, acronyms and daily standups. So, to spite my professional career, I started a personal blog as an attempt to go out on my own and build an audience. The premise for my blog, a.k.a. Justin’s Live, was that every weekend, I’d visit a new restaurant or bar with friends in San Francisco and write up a comedic review of the weekend shenanigans.

    My thought was that the reviews would be informative and hilarious. What I learned was that my reviews were in fact useful, as I observed readers cross-posting on their travel blogs; However, no one thought the content, or the producer of the content, was funny or entertaining.

    So, in an attempt to become a more entertaining writer for the blog, I decided to sign up for stand-up comedy classes in San Francisco. Every week, I began writing jokes and standing up at open mics throughout San Francisco. While I don’t believe I got that much funnier, I believe every entrepreneur should try stand-up comedy at some point in their lives. Here are a few ways that a failed career in stand-up comedy made me a better entrepreneur.

    Related: This Comedian Breaks Down Stand-Up, Startups and Entrepreneurship

    Farts aren’t always funny

    The first time I stood up at SF Comedy College for an open mic, I delivered the perfect fart joke. It involved my grandparents, a church pew and the act of confession. Not a single person in the room laughed. Not one.

    Fart jokes aren’t unique or special. They’re funny when the actual fart happens, but someone talking about a fart isn’t all that entertaining.

    It’s no different when you’re a valuable startup that solves a real customer problem. My former investor, Phil Libin, uses the analogy of building new apps into a developing ecosystem. When Apple launched the concept of mobile apps, there were hundreds of fart apps, but none of them stuck. It took years to build quality experiences that solved real customer problems. Farts are a shortcut. Same as the F- word. Go deeper to find substance versus relying on cheap laughs.

    The blinking red light

    Whenever a comedian bombs on stage, they get the flashing red light indicating that their time on stage is over. The quicker you fail on stage, the faster that red light flashes in the back of the audience. I became really accustomed to seeing that flashing red light, or in other words, experiencing rejection from an audience that didn’t think my aforementioned fart jokes were funny.

    It took six months of visiting late-night open mics before my sets progressed beyond two minutes. What’s more, throughout the process, my skin thickened. I noticed my performance in my day-to-day selling career improving. I was able to manage more difficult conversations, and I didn’t take “no” personally. The blinking red light taught me how to deal with rejection and failure in a very public manner. No matter how bright or fast that light blinks, don’t be afraid to face the red light.

    Related: I Recently Made My Stand Up Comedy Debut. It Was Terrifying, But So Rewarding.

    Riffing and reading the room

    On several, if not most, occasions, my written material bombed. So, during many of those sessions, I was forced to “riff,” or improvise, by engaging directly with an audience.

    As every improv purist knows, stand-up comedy and improv are two very different things; However, there are a number of skills from applied improv that carry over to stand-up comedy. The ability to take cues from an audience, accept their offer and riff on it, is one of the most important and valuable skills I’ve obtained as an entrepreneur.

    Whether it’s handling sales objections, defusing conflict or collaborating on a whiteboard, the ability to listen to a group of people, take what they give you and build upon it is a superpower.

    Nailing the punchline

    With every open mic set, I made it a goal to get at least one joke to land. It took months to get a full two- to three-minute set where I was stringing a handful of decent jokes together to avoid the blinking red light.

    These were a couple of things I learned in the process of nailing my punchlines:

    • I found that the more specific I got into the details of real-life scenarios and problems, the more those stories resonated with my audience.

    • I learned to use hard consonants because words with letters like K, B and P are just funnier.

    • By using the foundations of joke structure, I could take an audience’s preconceived opinions and expectations about everyday scenarios, like going to the grocery store, and break those expectations by injecting an unexpected outcome to make them laugh.

    • The more life experience I acquired, like getting married and having kids, the more relatable my material got.

    Coincidentally, this process and these insights were identical to the work that was required in finding product-market fit and crafting stories that resonated with investors, partners and customers. More specifically:

    • The more I focused on the specific pain of our customers and understood their business and lives, the better my “material” got.

    • During my startup pitches to VCs and customers, I learned to focus on the language I used to communicate my ideas.

    • In scenarios where venture capitalists or prospective customers had established beliefs about a problem area, I could break their expectations by showing them a better way forward.

    • The more work experience I obtained, the more I could speak to real-life business problems and tell a story about how to fix them.

    Related: How Amit Tandon Turned Comedy Into Serious Business

    It goes without saying that I’ll likely never become Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock, nor will I sell out an entire stadium to hear my legendary church pew joke. There isn’t a blinking red light big enough for my stand-up comedy career; However, not to “toot” my own horn, but I’m confident those late-night open mics helped me put the gas on my entrepreneurial endeavors. So, entrepreneurs, what are you waiting for? Let ‘er rip! (Ok, I promise that was the last one).

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    Justin Vandehey

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  • Jay Roach goes into the desert with Patricia Arquette for quirky, noirish Apple series

    Jay Roach goes into the desert with Patricia Arquette for quirky, noirish Apple series

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    Filmmaker Jay Roach usually has a moment of panic and doubt before production starts on a project.

    It’s something Sydney Pollack, who was a mentor of his, once assured him was normal. He’d also read something similar about Mike Nichols in Mark Harris’s biography. Good company to be in, sure, but still not the greatest feeling to be thinking “I’ve made a horrible mistake and how can I get out of this?”

    But for his latest endeavor, “ High Desert,” his first foray into episodic television, he didn’t have that. Currently five episodes into its eight-episode run on Apple TV+, “High Desert” stars Patricia Arquette as a hustler named Peggy Newman, an ex-addict and dealer scraping by in the Southern California desert, working as a saloon girl in an Old West themed park. Her husband (Matt Dillon) is in jail. Her mother (Bernadette Peters) has recently died. And more strait-laced siblings (Christine Taylor, Keir O’Donnell) are looking to sell the home she lives in. In an attempt to make some extra money to keep her place, she decides to pick up P.I. work on the side. And she’s not bad at it, though her methods are different from her reluctant Philip Marlowe-styled boss (Brad Garrett).

    Peggy, Roach said, was like a “rock ‘n’ roll Lucy Ricardo.” She’s dysfunctional on one level, but also has a wholly unique swagger and confidence that’s not unwarranted, which comes to life through Arquette’s singular performance, partly inspired by Patti Smith and The Runaways.

    Roach got the script, written by Nancy Fichman, Jennifer Hoppe (“Nurse Jackie”), and Katie Ford (“Miss Congeniality”), from Ben Stiller, a longtime friend who is an executive producer, to see if he’d consider directing the pilot. Soon, Roach was asking to do all eight.

    “It was heartbreaking and darkly funny,” he said. “Patricia talked about how people cope and how a character like Peggy might go off to be isolated but then ends up kind of collecting other lost people. I thought that was really moving, this idea of coping with tragedy and grief through a very off-center approach to life.”

    Roach has made a career directing features, including the “Austin Powers” trilogy, two “Meet the Parents” movies, “Mystery, Alaska” and, more recently, “Bombshell,” as well as acclaimed HBO political dramas like “Recount” and “Game Change,” both of which won him Emmys.

    Though he’s still developing films, including a glamorous “Ocean’s Eleven” movie, set in Monte Carlo in 1962 and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, he’d been interested in diving into longer-form storytelling.

    “You get to go much deeper into character and develop more characters in a complicated set of predicaments,” Roach said. “As a consumer of a great long-form TV, I love having time to get to know people, to find out what really makes them tick and really get lost in their predicament with them. The empathy factor can be even stronger.”

    Plus, the desert is a place he knew well. He grew up on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series would be in the Mojave Desert in Yucca Valley, California, a town bordered by the San Bernardino Mountains and the Joshua Tree National Park. It’s the kind of place where, next to a run-down plywood shack, it’s not entirely unusual to see a single post with a Tesla charger.

    “In Joshua Tree, everyone is a bit of a rebel and a recluse or, you know, a refugee of some sort,” he said. “All types of classes come out there to get away and end up hanging out with each other. There’s so many contradictions and there is such a strong sense of community because there’s almost a bonding over facing the challenges of surviving.”

    For the series, that meant larger than life characters, who are also doing some genuine soul searching, like Rupert Friend’s “Guru Bob,” a former local newscaster who had an on-air breakdown and remade himself as a self-styled guru in the desert. He’s also being hunted by some bad people.

    “Everyone’s so quirky out there so there’s going to be absurdity, there’s going to be irony, there’s going to be comedy,” he said. “The tone is tricky, though. It gets broad and farcical at times but it veers back into something that’s very, very emotional.”

    The cast was key – a group of actors who are “comedy capable,” Roach said, even if they’re not known for comedy. The music helped enormously, too. From music supervisor Maggie Phillips to the cast, everyone had something to contribute.

    Soundtrack choices range from cheeky, Mel Tormé’s “Nice Work if You Can Get It” and Frank Sinatra belting “I’ve Got the World on a String,” to the more sincere and soul searching in Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee’s cover of “Farewell Transmission” and Ellen McIlwaine’s 1972 heartbreaker “Can’t Find My Way Home.”

    “There’s a number of songs that are pure irony, that we use as buttons at the end of the episodes,” Roach said. “Others give you permission to connect to those emotional zones.”

    Roach listened to the McIlwaine song every day on his drive to the set. It felt to him like the heart and spirit of the show.

    Even with the trickiness of shooting during COVID-19, budget ceilings and the quick pace of television, it was one of his best experiences. The vibes, he said, were just so good. He never even once “tried to get out of it.”

    —-

    Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ldbahr

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  • ‘Tony’ Yasumura reveals all about his not-naked shtick and its origins in Japanese comedy

    ‘Tony’ Yasumura reveals all about his not-naked shtick and its origins in Japanese comedy

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    TOKYO — The shtick that’s gone viral features a soccer player, a Spice Girl, James Bond, you name it, appearing to be naked, except they’re not really naked at all.

    The disarming sight gag by Japanese comic Tonikaku Akarui Yasumura is simple and rather silly. But its bare-all message about the deceptiveness of what meets the eye has a lot of people laughing.

    The recent appearance of Tony, as Yasumura is known these days, on “Britain’s Got Talent” has drawn more than 10 million views on the audition show’s YouTube account.

    “Do it with a majestically dignified and utterly unfounded confidence,” he told The Associated Press recently in Tokyo, of the secret to his comedy. “That gets over because what you’re doing is such nonsense.”

    Yasumura has been doing his trademark act for nearly a decade on TV shows and comedy houses around Japan.

    He stands before the audience wearing only a pink flower-patterned bathing suit and declares he will portray a certain person posing naked.

    Then he raises a leg, sits with his hands folded, or crouches low, strategically and carefully positioning himself so his only attire is out of view.

    “Don’t worry,” he says in a friendly, reassuring tone.

    “I’m wearing,” he adds, without saying more because in the Japanese language, the object of the sentence is often unspoken.

    On the British show, the judges finished the sentence for him, shouting out, “Pants!”

    Yasumura says he can depict anyone this way, including politicians, musical stars or nondescript people doing everyday things like drinking tea.

    “It’s just funny. There is absolutely no meaning,” said Yasumura, 41, who has a jolly laugh but is obviously intensely serious about his craft.

    You must always wear a smile. And never, ever flinch.

    He acknowledged he barely understood what the show’s judges were saying, and inside felt unsure what to do. But he didn’t skip a beat.

    “Honestly, you are the funniest contestant we’ve had all year, seriously. Really, really funny, and original,” gushed Simon Cowell, the show’s producer and usually one of the harshest judges.

    “He brought confidence, comedy and luckily his pants! Tonikaku had us crackin’ up from start to finish with his brilliant audition,” the show said in a statement.

    The humor in Yasumura’s performance is rooted in the Japanese version of vaudeville, which includes traditional storytelling, in which the narrator plays all the roles, as well as standup comedy.

    “Hadaka gei,” which literally translates as “naked acts,” make up a genre of Japanese comedy.

    It’s different from putting on a performance, like a juggling act, playing an instrument or dancing, no matter how funny it might end up being, because what he does constitutes the Japanese art of comedy, or “neta,” Yasumura says.

    “Neta” is also used to describe the ingredients of gourmet cooking or the scoop of a news story, in other words, the key kernel of what’s unfolding.

    He chanced upon his idea when he saw a female pop idol on a book cover, yes, posing naked, except she was sitting in a position that made you imagine she could be nude, when all you saw were her legs, face and arms.

    “It was exactly the same as my neta. I saw that and knew: This is it,” he said.

    And he hasn’t stopped since.

    His success on “Britain’s Got Talent” has resonated at home. Many people left uplifting comments online, noting he had made them feel so proud, witnessing comedy crossing borders.

    Soccer star Keisuke Honda posted a photo of himself kicking a ball on Twitter, next to a photo of Yasumura striking the naked soccer player pose. “I’m wearing,” Honda tweeted.

    Matsuko Deluxe, a reputed writer, noted on a recent TV show that Yasumura wasn’t afraid to poke fun at himself, when much of modern-day humor tended to do just the opposite, and poke fun at others.

    Although Yasumura exudes an innocence about him, in all his naked-baby cuteness, he also possesses a strength. It’s obvious he’s done his pants gimmick over and over, for years, even when no one laughed.

    Even today, some online observers are already slamming Yasumura as inane, if not offensive.

    Yasumura says he is lucky because he doesn’t have to do anything special to maintain his chubby figure.

    Still, sticking with a mode of self-expression requires dedication and courage. After all, it’s clear he isn’t afraid literally to stand practically naked before an audience.

    He swears he’ll be doing his routine till he dies.

    If he makes the show’s semi-finals, Yasumura isn’t sure what exactly he will do, maybe Elton John or Freddie Mercury posing naked.

    But don’t worry: He will be wearing pants.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • “The Little Mermaid” makes box office splash with $95.5 million opening

    “The Little Mermaid” makes box office splash with $95.5 million opening

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    “ The Little Mermaid ” made moviegoers want to be under the sea on Memorial Day weekend.

    Disney’s live-action remake of its 1989 animated classic easily outswam the competition, bringing in $95.5 million on 4,320 screens in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday.

    And Disney estimates the film starring Halle Bailey as the titular mermaid Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as her sea witch nemesis Ursula will reach $117.5 million by the time the holiday is over. It ranks as the fifth biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever.

    It displaces “Fast X” in the top spot. The 10th installment in the “Fast and Furious” franchise starring Vin Diesel has lagged behind more recent releases in the series, bringing in $23 million domestically for a two-week total of $108 million for Universal Pictures.

    In its fourth weekend, Disney and Marvel’s “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” made an estimated $20 million in North America to take third place. It’s now made $299 million domestically.

    Fourth went to Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which keeps reaching new levels in its eighth weekend. Now available to rent on VOD, it still earned $6.3 million in theatres. Its cumulative total of $559 million makes Mario and Luigi the year’s biggest earners so far.

    Comics couldn’t stand up to Ariel as the week’s other new releases sank.

    “The Machine,” an action comedy starring stand—up comedian Bert Kreischer, finished fifth with $4.9 million domestically. And ” About My Father,” the broad comedy starring stand-up Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro, was sixth with $4.3 million.

    Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

    1. “The Little Mermaid,” $95.5 million.

    2. “Fast X,” $23 million.

    3. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $20 million.

    4. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $6.3 million.

    5. “The Machine,” $4.9 million.

    6. “About My Father,” $4.3 million.

    7. “Kandahar,” $2.4 million.

    8. “You Hurt My Feelings,” 1.4 million.

    9. “Evil Dead Rise,” $1 million.

    10. “Book Club, The Next Chapter,” $920, 000.

    —-

    Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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  • “The Little Mermaid” makes box office splash with $95.5 million opening

    “The Little Mermaid” makes box office splash with $95.5 million opening

    [ad_1]

    “ The Little Mermaid ” made moviegoers want to be under the sea on Memorial Day weekend.

    Disney’s live-action remake of its 1989 animated classic easily outswam the competition, bringing in $95.5 million on 4,320 screens in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday.

    And Disney estimates the film starring Halle Bailey as the titular mermaid Ariel and Melissa McCarthy as her sea witch nemesis Ursula will reach $117.5 million by the time the holiday is over. It ranks as the fifth biggest Memorial Day weekend opening ever.

    It displaces “Fast X” in the top spot. The 10th installment in the “Fast and Furious” franchise starring Vin Diesel has lagged behind more recent releases in the series, bringing in $23 million domestically for a two-week total of $108 million for Universal Pictures.

    In its fourth weekend, Disney and Marvel’s “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ” made an estimated $20 million in North America to take third place. It’s now made $299 million domestically.

    Fourth went to Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which keeps reaching new levels in its eighth weekend. Now available to rent on VOD, it still earned $6.3 million in theatres. Its cumulative total of $559 million makes Mario and Luigi the year’s biggest earners so far.

    Comics couldn’t stand up to Ariel as the week’s other new releases sank.

    “The Machine,” an action comedy starring stand—up comedian Bert Kreischer, finished fifth with $4.9 million domestically. And ” About My Father,” the broad comedy starring stand-up Sebastian Maniscalco and Robert De Niro, was sixth with $4.3 million.

    Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

    1. “The Little Mermaid,” $95.5 million.

    2. “Fast X,” $23 million.

    3. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $20 million.

    4. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $6.3 million.

    5. “The Machine,” $4.9 million.

    6. “About My Father,” $4.3 million.

    7. “Kandahar,” $2.4 million.

    8. “You Hurt My Feelings,” 1.4 million.

    9. “Evil Dead Rise,” $1 million.

    10. “Book Club, The Next Chapter,” $920, 000.

    —-

    Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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  • Bulgarian writer wins International Booker Prize for darkly comic memory novel

    Bulgarian writer wins International Booker Prize for darkly comic memory novel

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    Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel have won the International Booker Prize for “Time Shelter,” a darkly comic novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia

    LONDON — Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel won the International Booker Prize on Tuesday for “Time Shelter,” a darkly comic novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia.

    The book beat five other finalists to the prize, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The 50,000 pounds ($62,000) in prize money is divided between author and translator.

    “Time Shelter” imagines a clinic that recreates the past, with each floor reproducing a different decade. Intended as a way to help people with dementia unlock their memories, it soon becomes a magnet for people eager to escape the modern world.

    French novelist Leila Slimani, who chaired the judging panel, said it was “a brilliant novel full of irony and melancholy.”

    “It’s a very profound work that deals with a contemporary question and also a philosophical question: What happens to us when our memories disappear?” she said.

    “But it is also a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented and where nostalgia can be a poison.”

    Gospodinov is one of Bulgaria’s most-translated authors. “Time Shelter” has also won Italy’s Strega European Prize for literature in Italian translation.

    The International Booker Prize is awarded every year to a translated work of fiction published in the U.K. or Ireland. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the autumn.

    The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages — which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain — and to salute the underappreciated work of literary translators.

    Last year’s winners were Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell for “Tomb of Sand.”

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