Category: News

When you first hear Dave Franco has co-written and directed a movie, the first thing that probably comes to mind isn’t horror film. But, then again, what really does come to mind? Franco, for his part, assumes people would think it’s a comedy, but the more thought that’s put into it, Dave Franco’s directorial debut really could be about anything. Yes, he’s done comedies, but he’s also done films like If Beale Street Could Talk. Whatever is lurking “inside the mind of Dave Franco” really could be a whole host of genres.

Co-written with Joe Swanberg, The Rental follows two couples (played by Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand, and Jeremy Allen White) as they spend what is supposed to be a romantic, leisurely weekend away at a rented Oregon house with a scenic view. Things start to get weird when they think they are being spied upon by the home’s owner, which complicates an already volatile situation the involves alcohol, drugs, two brothers who don’t like each other very much (yes, Franco is aware of the conclusions you might draw), and infidelity.

Franco says one of his goals was to make a horror movie that didn’t use jump scares, because he loves a great genre movie. Ahead, he explains where this all came from and if, someday, as we often see with horror directors, if we’ll get a movie trailer that promotes a new project of his as, “From the twisted mind of Dave Franco.”

I saw you actually had your premiere at a drive-in theater. That’s great.

You know, we’re obviously living in a new world right now and distributors are trying to find new ways to release their films. I feel very lucky to have been paired with IFC who is really thinking outside the box and being agile. Like you said, we had a drive-in premiere for the film. Everyone kept telling me this is the first time anyone has ever had a premiere at a drive-in. So at least have that under our belts.

It sounds pretty fun.

Actually, it ended up being really fun. It definitely wasn’t what I imagined for the first public screening of the movie, but in certain ways it was even better. Most standard premiers are a little bit stuffy…

Oh yeah.

The red carpet…

They are strangely not very fun. But I saw the pictures from your event and it actually looked fun.

Yeah, this was the opposite where it felt really relaxed and there wasn’t a spotlight on me and the cast. It was more of a communal experience where everyone had been cooped up in their homes for so long. Essentially, it was just a bunch of movie lovers coming together and having this joint experience, which is very rare these days.

This should be your thing. Even when, hopefully, this is all over someday, you should always do it at a drive-in theater.

[Laughs] It’s not a bad idea. And I guess I’d be the first to make it “their thing.”

This movie is sinister.

Yeah. [Laughs] Is that the question?

Yeah, that’s the question. “This movie is sinister.” I guess when I first heard that Dave Franco was going to direct a movie, I guess “sinister” didn’t come to mind.

Yes, yes. Definitely. I think most people know me from the comedies I’ve acted in, so everyone is surprised that my directorial debut is a horror film. But as a viewer, there’s nothing I love more than a smart genre film. I think about the work of Ari Aster, Jordan Peele, Amy Seimetz, Jeremy Saulnier, Sean Durkin. These are filmmakers who make projects that feel more nuanced and atmospheric. They really take the time to creep up on you as opposed to a lot of genre films that rely too heavily on cheap jump scares.

The cheap jump scare is what I hate because they are scary, but I don’t like being scared in that way. That kicks in something in your body that’s uncomfortable.

Yes! These films are more about the characters and their relationships. They ultimately linger with you long after the film ends. These other ones that only rely on the jump scares, they are usually populated with these two-dimensional stock characters that you’re not invested in at all. So by the time the movie ends, you’ve already forgotten about it and they just feel disposable.

Yeah, if you go back to movies like The Shining and The Exorcist and even The Thing, they don’t rely on jump scares. And I admired that about your movie.

Thank you, man. I think there’s a general stigma against horror movies, where a lot of people look down on them and write them off as being schlocky and cheap. But the best ones, the movies from these directors that I mentioned, they have as much merit as some of these serious dramas that are typically recognized during awards season.

The reason I wanted to write this script with Joe Swanberg is because his main strengths lie in characters and relationships. Our goal from the beginning was to create a tense relationship drama where the interpersonal issues between the characters were just as thrilling as the fact that there was a psycho killer lurking in the shadows. At its core the movie really is about these characters and relationships, then we sprinkle the horror elements on top to help accentuate the problems that they’re going through. In my mind, when I’m having problems within my romantic relationships, that can be scarier than anything else. So I think we were trying to tap into that as well.

A big element of this movie is about the tension between brothers. When writing it, did you think about how everyone was going to read into this and jump to a bunch of conclusions? Even if stuff is based on actual experiences.

You know what’s funny? That thought never crossed my mind until this press tour that I’m currently on. I’m sure subconsciously I included elements from our relationship into the film. I think the brotherly dynamic in the film is more reflective of how me and my brother were a decade ago. Where my brother used to look at me as the baby in the family, no matter how old I got. Now he does look at me as more of an equal.

Is directing where you want your focus to go? You know how when you see the trailers, sometimes with famous horror directors they say things like, “From the twisted mind of so and so.” Is that what you want? “From the twisted mind of Dave Franco.”

[Laughs] No, I mean, I would love to continue to direct but I hope that I’m able to balance that with acting and writing and producing and just continuing to attach myself to projects that feel unique and original, regardless of what role I’m playing in those projects. It is nice to flex a different muscle every once in a while. I definitely have a few ideas in mind for what my follow up project could be as a director. That being said, I’m attached to a couple of projects as an actor that I’m really excited about. So. I guess I just need to kind of wait and see which one comes to fruition first.

Well, I hope you get that someday. Where we just hear, “From the twisted mind of Dave Franco,” and we know what we’re in for.

[Laughs] Yeah, I appreciate all the kind words man. It’s very nice of you.

‘The Rental’ will be released on July 24th. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Burger Records, an esteemed indie label founded in 2007, is in the midst of a major controversy. Numerous sexual assault allegations have been made against the label and artists signed to it, and the label stands accused of “curating a culture built on pedophilic tendencies and teenage fetishization.” One of the most prominent acts involved is SWMRS, the pop-punk band featuring Joey Armstrong, the son of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong.

In a lengthy Instagram post, The Regrettes’ Lydia Night accused Armstrong of sexual misconduct, calling the singer her “abuser” and alleging that he engaged in “emotional abuse and sexual coercion” with her.

Night began her statement:

“Over the past few weeks, I’ve read a lot of heartbreaking, disturbing and inspiring stories of abuse in the music industry that were brought to light by some very brave womxn. Yesterday, my abuser Joey Armstrong and his band SWMRS released an unbelievably hypocritical statement on social media that has pushed me to publicly share my story. This band’s delusional positioning of themselves as woke feminists is not only triggering for me as a victim, but is complete bullsh*t and needs to be called out. I’ve spent over a year processing and reflecting on my experience to try to find the right way to go about it. I was in a relationship with Joey that started when I was 16 and ended right before my 18th birthday. For so long I viewed it just as being toxic and not something valid enough to share but now I know that what I actually experienced was emotional abuse and sexual coercion by someone in a position of power over me. It’s important to me that Joey and his entire band are held accountable to fully understand that even though they may view themselves as ‘good guys’ they are continuing to perpetuate the exact toxic culture they are trying to call out.”

Night went on to describe how she and Joey met, saying he sent her messages on Instagram offering to take her band on tour with SWMRS. While on tour, the two formed a sexual relationship, when she was 16 years old and Armstrong was 22. She said Armstrong asked her to keep the relationship secret, which “created an isolating mindset where I constantly felt alone.” Night said she felt like Armstrong was “pressuring” her into “sexual situations,” noting, “Everytime we took a step sexually it was because he wanted to and made it clear either by putting my hand on his crotch, shaming me for saying I wasn’t comfortable, gaslighting me or ignoring me when I didn’t give my consent.”

She wrote towards the end of the message:

“It took me years to finally understand that I am a victim of abuse. When I started becoming sexual in my current relationship, there were multiple times where I felt extremely triggered and would cry in bed not knowing how to explain it. I’m still remembering traumatic events from Joey and I’s relationship 3 years later. It hit me hard and took a major toll on my self esteem. Last December, I tried to start the healing process by confronting Joey. Even though he interrupted me throughout the conversation, he seemed to somewhat take in what I was telling him and apologized. […] [SWMRS’ Cole Becker] dropped a handwritten apology letter from Joey by my house almost a week ago which was nice but didn’t address any of the abuse, my age, his position of power, or anything sexual at all. After yesterday’s social media post, Joey texted me to follow up on the letter which was a completely transparent attempt at feeling out what I was gonna do knowing the pure hypocrisy their statement held.”

Read Night’s full statement below, along with the SWMRS statement that prompted Night to speak out.

Of the eight films in the DC Extended Universe, Justice League (120 minutes) has the second shortest runtime, behind Birds of Prey (109 minutes — another reason why it’s the best movie in this shared universe). But it’s about to become the longest.

The so-called “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, director Zack Snyder’s intended vision for the 2017 film that he had to depart midway through due to a family tragedy, is being released by HBO Max next year. Why so serious, I mean, why so delayed? Because there are expensive reshoots, albeit without the main cast, and it’s going to be long. Gone with the Wind-level long. Original reports had it at 214 minutes, but as Snyder told Beyond the Trailer’s Grace Randolph, the runtime might be even more butt-numbing.

“I famously advertised the runtime at 214 minutes,” Snyder said. “Now, in its current state, it’s going to end up being longer than that yet… [it’s] exciting to bring all this new material to the fans,” Snyder said, though he was reticent to confirm an exact runtime as he was “still working on” the movie.

Let’s say it’s 245 minutes long. You could watch the Snyder Cut once or — and hear me out — Money Plane three times. Or most of DC Universe’s Harley Quinn season two (can I interest you in Bane being depicted as a splosions-loving goof and Andy Daly as the voice of Two-Face?). Choose wisely, people.

(Via Games Radar)

The above production still hails from one of Netflix’s Turkish-filmed shows, Love 101, which is one of five projects that are currently in various stages of production in the country. However, the streaming giant has pulled one production, If Only, from its lineup after Turkish authorities — whose position earlier this year was bolstered by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan supporting a cleric who declared that homosexuality “brings disease and causes this generation to decay” — pressured Netflix to censor a gay character out of the series.

Variety reports that Turkish authorities fully denied permission for the show, in which one of the five main characters is gay, to shoot using scripts as reviewed. Netflix pulled the production out of the country altogether rather than bow to pressure to alter the script or the character. Once Netflix made this move, speculation began that it would pull all of its Turkish productions, but a Netflix spokesperson insisted that this wouldn’t be the case:

“Netflix remains deeply committed to our Turkish members and the creative community in Turkey. We are proud of the incredible talent we work with. We currently have several Turkish originals in production — with more to come — and look forward to sharing these stories with our members all around the world.”

Variety notes that Netflix recently found itself in the position of confirming to Turkish media that Love 101 does not include a gay character after fan speculation that a character would come out. In the case of If Only (which was set to be produced by the Ay Yapim production house), however, Netflix stood firm in its decision (while still paying the show’s pre-production costs) to not censor an LGBTQ character, which sets quite a precedent if Turkey wants to hold onto more Netflix dollars in the future.

(Via Variety, Deadline & NBC News)

Kanye West was active on Twitter last night, and in a series of (now mostly deleted) tweets, he shared a number of claims. He said that his wife Kim Kardashian “tried to bring a doctor to lock me up,” and expressed his belief that the movie Get Out is about him. Kanye ended his tweet session by writing, “Ima focus on the music now.”

Shortly after that, he shared a screenshot of a seemingly work-in-progress tracklist for his upcoming album Donda, which he is planning to release on Friday, July 24. Kanye previously shared a Donda tracklist over the weekend, but this new one is substantially different from his previous one.

As is stands now based on what Kanye shared, the album runs for 39 minutes across 12 tracks, down from 20 tracks on the previously posted tracklist. New to this tracklist are “Stay On Em / Precious,” “I Know God Breathed On This,” and “Future Sounds” (which may have evolved from “Future Bounce” on the previous tracklist).

Also new and noteworthy is “Space X – Alien,” which could be about Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. The song’s date is listed as 2018 in Kanye’s screenshot, so it appears this one has been in the works for a couple years. That would place its origins before Musk’s support, and then seeming withdrawal of said support, for Kanye’s presidential campaign.

In a bizarre and worrying rant on Twitter, Kanye West claims that his wife, Kim Kardashian tried to have him “locked up,” among other disorienting statements that have fans concerned for the mercurial rapper’s well-being.

In the stream-of-consciousness-style burst of seemingly random thoughts, Kanye posited that “everybody knows the movie Get Out is about me” and called out several of his celebrity acquaintances, including Vogue publisher Anna Wintour, Drake, actor Shia Labeouf, and mother-in-law Kris Jenner.

Among the disturbing tweets, Kanye claimed Wintour “looked at me like I was crazy” when informed of his Gap deal, that “NBC locked up Bill Cosby,” and that “Kim tried to bring a doctor to lock me up.” He tweeted combatively toward Kris Jenner, writing “don’t play with me” and sharing a screenshot of a DM he sent her on Twitter.

As of press time, some of the tweets have already disappeared, but others remain. Screenshots are provided below to preserve as much as possible as the situation appears to be fluctuating.

This isn’t the first time Kanye went on a worrying Twitter rampage. In late 2018, he went on a similar rant, claiming that Drake was out to get him. Incidentally, 2018 was also the year that Kanye revealed his bipolar diagnosis via the cover of his summer album Ye. In 2019, he discussed the diagnosis with David Letterman, making the claim that he was not taking medication to regulate his condition.

Just over 24 hours before his latest rant, Kanye held a “campaign rally” in South Carolina, where he made the bizarre claim that Harriet Tubman never freed slaves and tearfully spoke out against abortion. It’s reported that he was not accepted onto South Carolina’s ballot.

For a long time, Charles Barkley and Draymond Green have exchanged barbs through the media. Green is well-known for his no-holds-barred attitude, both on and off the court, and Barkley is legendary for having (very) little filter in his role as the face of TNT’s NBA studio coverage.

In advance of the NBA’s restart in Orlando, TNT launched a five-part series called “The Arena,” which the network describes as “a new in-depth storytelling franchise created to provide a thought-provoking forum for content on topics occurring on and off the court of play.” Green and Barkley are both panelists, alongside Dwyane Wade and Cari Champion, and the first episode featured an early conversation between the two men on their issues in the past.

At the outset, Barkley plainly says “I like Draymond,” while noting (with a smile) that “he does annoy me at times on the court.” From there, Green gives a more serious answer about why Barkley’s commentary has bothered him in the past.

“He’s a black man,” Green said. “I respect him. The issue I’ve had is that a lot of people watch the game of basketball and they don’t know what they’re looking at. So when they look at a Chuck or at different guys who have this platform, they take what you’re saying and they listen to that and they run with that. For me, it hasn’t necessarily affected my pockets. But there are a lot of guys in this league that, people run with what guys say on these platforms, and it affects guys’ pockets.”

Later, Green said of Barkley that he has “done too many great things in this league and won a lot to hear some of the stuff he is saying about me.” Of course, it will be interesting to see if anything changes with Barkley, especially when he’s not sitting next to Green on a panel, but this appears to be a situation in which both (and especially Green) were candid about their feelings. In addition, Green makes interesting points, and Barkley seems to be willing and open to listening to perhaps inform his commentary in the future.

As the NBA has begun its bubble restart at Disney, a significant topic of conversation has been the food after a number of players posted pictures that made the rounds on social media.

The initial food reviews weren’t great, as the meals players got delivered to their room during quarantine suffered from the same issues just about all mass-produced delivery food suffers from. The food has gotten better, but seeking out variety will be something many players look for as their stay in the bubble continues for the next month (or three months as the playoffs wear on). As such, the league is working on bringing in outside options for players to order in from, to avoid more Richaun Holmes situations where someone breaks the bubble zone and must quarantine because they went to grab a delivery bag of food.

As such, the league is working on partnerships with some Orlando restaurants. The first was a reported deal with Landry’s restaurant group restaurants owned by Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, which drew some criticism for not answering the call of the moment to support locally owned restaurants that have been hit especially hard by the pandemic — and particularly Black-owned restaurants in the midst of the current social justice movement. On Monday, Chris Haynes of Yahoo reported the league was working to address that concern by looking into a partnership with 10 local, minority-owned restaurants to join the bubble campus delivery program.

The league wants to ensure any food entering the bubble is being made following their safety protocols — and delivered understanding those rules — but it’s good to see the league working to address not just a concern of players in the bubble of wanting food alternatives but also stepping up to work with local minority-owned businesses. Hopefully they’re able to get all the details worked out soon and we’ll be seeing pictures of some of these restaurants offerings on player social media.

When HBO Max bowed in late May, subscribers were in for a surprise: All eight Harry Potter movies were on there, sharing space with DC movies, Looney Tunes, Adult Swim, TCM oldies, and HBO content. If that seemed too good to be true, it was, sort of: As per Entertainment Weekly, the filmic wing of the deathless franchise will be vanishing from the streamer on August 25, after only three months online.

The arrival of the Potter films — which ran from 2001 to 2011, and which made its central trio unimaginably wealthy — on the new streaming service wound up coming at a strange time. Mere weeks after HBO Max launch, Potter creator, J.K. Rowling faced severe backlash after making controversial comments about the trans community. The author has not backed off of her comments but rather doubled, tripled, quadrupled down, even prompting her still young-ish cast members — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint among them — to speak up in defense of trans people.

Potter fan sites have also criticized Rowling’s comments, some of them even removing her name from their coffers entirely, as though their favorite franchise has no creator. That’s how strong Potter love is. In any case, you have a month and change to binge those eight movies, and good luck because most of them are quite long. But don’t worry; surely they’ll be back.

(Via EW)

The film and television industries have been on lockdown for over four months now, but of course that hasn’t meant there’s no new content. Lots of shows have relocated from the studio to the home, with performers, hosts, their guests, et al. talking into webcams in their living rooms. SNL has been among the programs to rework itself for the quarantine era, but The Hollywood Reporter are claiming that show is already plotting a studio return.

Granted, this is from a source, not NBC itself, who claims the longtime live sketch show’s 46th season will take a big step and return to its iconic studio. That being said, the full cast and crew are unlikely to return. As per THR, “One option would be to allow only limited configurations of cast and crew into the studio, which presumably would mean that a show consisting mostly of live sketches might not be in the offing for some time.”

Another probable major absence: that live studio audience. While SNL’s hometown, New York City — once the epicenter of the pandemic — has gotten considerably better, with cases relatively low and steady, the majority of indoor places, such as movie theaters and museums, are still closed to crowds. That may mean whatever cast members are back on any given week will be playing to empty seats. Maybe they could do what baseball is now doing and have cardboard cutouts — or, better yet, do what South Korean baseball did and fill the seats with stuffed animals.

Again, this is all in the larval stage, and everything can certainly change, as it often does these days. Still, shows ditching home webcams and returning to studios has already happened to certain programs. The Tonight Show, also at NBC, restarted in-studio taping last week, with Jimmy Fallon and house band The Roots keeping their social distance. As of now, the last time SNL recorded in the studio, with everyone present, was the March 7 episode hosted by Daniel Craig.

(Via THR)