One of the first streaming titles to get the quarantine-bump was Contagion, Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 thriller that is now the scariest movie of all-time. At one point, it was “the most watched movie in the Warner Bros. library after the Harry Potter films… In 2019, Contagion ranked at number 270.” I, personally, have no interest in watching something that reminds me of the everyday horror we’re living through, especially when there’s so many other Soderbergh films to enjoy (Magic Mike XXL is right there), and I’m not the only one. But it’s still a popular streaming option, and star Matt Damon believes that’s because of how accurately it “predicted” the coronavirus pandemic.

“Anybody who says you couldn’t predict this — I mean, just look at Contagion,” Damon said on Dublin radio station Spin 1038 in an interview shared on Wednesday. “Ten years ago, we made a movie just by talking to experts and asking them, ‘How would this look? And how would it go down?’ So it’s upsetting. The whole thing is tragic and sad.”

Damon has a personal connection to the pandemic, too, as his daughter Alexia tested positive for the coronavirus “early on,” as did her roommates in New York City. (Damon, his wife, and their other kids are in Ireland.) She “got through it fine,” he said, and “we’ll reunite with her at the end of the month,” but it was scary being so far away from her.

Scotty doesn’t know, but Matt Damon knows what to do: “Sit at home and wash our hands and socially distance.” You can watch the full interview below.

(Via USA Today)

Some “peachy keen” news is in store for Neil Gaiman fans. An adaptation of The Sandman (the DC Comics/Vertigo series that began in the late 1980s and spanned decades) is actually coming our way, and sooner than we’d imagined. Nope, this isn’t the long-gestating TV series that will eventually arrive on Netflix (in live-action form) and was due to shoot before the pandemic shuffle. That in-process effort followed long after New Line Cinema wanted to give it a go with Joseph Gordon Levitt headlining, but all of that can be swept out of our dreams for the time being. An Audible version of Gaiman’s creation is on the near-ish horizon with a magnificent cast.

Gaiman dropped the news himself on Twitter with a curious headliner: Morpheus, the God of Dreams, will be voiced by great Scotsman James McAvoy. In addition, the cast will include Kat Dennings (as the adorable goth herself, Death, although we’ll be sadly missing out on this visual) and Michael Sheen (as Lucifer!), along with Riz Ahmed, Samantha Morton, Andy Serkis, Taron Egerton, and loads more talent.

“You are going to be able to listen to the full cast #TheSandmanAudio at @audible from July 15th,” the fantasy author tweeted. “This will be @DirkMaggs’ adaptation of the first 3 Graphic Novels. They are stunning, with the cast of your dreams…”

It really is a cast of dreams, and although we haven’t heard anything about casting for the Netflix show, the Warner Bros. TV drama will reportedly be the most expensive DC Entertainment show ever. With a tease like that, maybe we can (at least) dream that this audio cast is actually the TV cast as well? The Sandman audio will arrive on June 15.

View Entire Post ›

This week’s bottle episode of Killing Eve proved we’ve been getting the familiar adage about going home again all wrong. You can, go home that is, but that visit might end with fiery explosions and a dash of matricide. “Are You From Pinner” raised the stakes on a show that often plays its wide variety of increasingly gruesome murders for fun, forcing Villanelle to get personal with her victim for the first time in, well, ever.

How will this latest kill change her going forward? Let’s investigate.

The Mother Of All Murders

Villanelle’s making a hometown visit which, for her, means breaking and entering into her estranged family’s home in the middle of bumf*ck Russia. She meets some cousins who think the world is flat and gives us a reaction GIF that we can mentally catalog for future family get-togethers.

(No Uncle Tom, 5G wireless didn’t create the pandemic. Quit drinking bleach, goddammit!)

Anyway, Villanelle gets a mixed reaction to her surprise drive-by. Her brother’s clearly happy to see her — he’s the gentle, caring sort who sleeps in the barn and beats up old couches to exorcise his anger. Her young half-brother just wants to test her knowledge of Elton John’s culinary habits. Weird? Sure, but his obsession with the British icon gives us this look, so … worth it.

But it’s Villanelle’s mother, Tatiana, whose opinion she really cares about. Villanelle has a very loaded relationship with the woman who gave her life, then tossed her out like yesterday’s garbage. She’s cold and stern but everyone here seems to love and respect her, something Villanelle can’t reconcile with because she blames her mother for all of the bad that’s happened in her life. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, but it dredges up some dark memories for both women. Like suicides and burning orphanages dark.

A turning point comes when Villanelle, who continues to suspect her mother of putting on a maternal act to hide her more abusive tendencies, discovers her half-brother Bor’ka beating himself after Tatiana told him he embarrassed the family with his entry into a local baking competition. Harsh? Yes, but now we’re really interested in a Russian version of The Great British Bake Off where overbearing mothers berate child bakers over dense cakes and weak-peaked meringues.

After a day at the fair, while the rest of the house sleeps, Villanelle and Tatiana have it out. What begins as a cry for affection on Villanelle’s part ends with Tatiana demanding she leave, claiming she does not fit with this new family of hers. Sheesh… tough crowd for a harmless tomato joke.

Tatiana claims she sent Villanelle to the orphanage because she saw a darkness in her, the same darkness her father saw. This is a particularly deep cut for Villanelle, who views her father as a hero-like figure in her life, despite his unexplained absence. So, Villanelle reacts accordingly, accusing her mother of being the darkness and coming to the conclusion that yes, she needs to kill her.

It’s a particularly brutal way to bury the hatchet, but Villanelle’s not done yet. She sends Bor’ka to the barn where her older brother, Pyotr, sleeps, then sets the family’s home on fire, burning her remaining relatives in their sleep and covering up her mother’s murder.

There was growth in Villanelle’s decision to spare two of her family members, but if she came to Russia looking for closure or acceptance, she found neither. In fact, this murder might be Villanelle’s most personal yet, and it’s not something she’ll be able to bounce back from easily. After seasons of hinting at her need for family, to wipe out any semblance of one she might have had left feels like a turning point for the character, and the show. She’s just as broken as her counterpart, Eve, and that desperation and loneliness might provoke both women to indulge in their worst tendencies. But for now, we’ll simply feel bad for our doe-eyed psychopath. We all know how tough it is to go home again and really, who among us hasn’t quietly sobbed on the train ride back while listening to “Crocodile Rock?”

As humanity is facing an era where some people need help now more than ever, celebrities are reaching into their wallets to give to charities in any way that they can. Tekashi 69 tried to help out, but his efforts were rejected. He earned around $2 million from “Gooba” merchandise, so he tried to donate $200,000 to the nonprofit organization No Kid Hungry. However, they decided to reject the donation due to Tekashi’s past, and the rapper is pretty upset about the situation.

In an Instagram post (which has since been deleted), Tekashi called out the organization, writing, “@nokidhungry rather take food out the mouth of these innocent children i never seen something so cruel.”

After reports of Tekashi’s donation surfaced, No Kid Hungry shared a statement explaining that they had turned down the rapper’s money, saying, “We are grateful for Mr. Hernandez’s generous offer to donate to No Kid Hungry but we have informed his representatives that we have declined this donation. As a child-focused campaign, it is our policy to decline funding from donors whose activities do not align with our mission and values.”

Meanwhile, Tekashi has had much success since his release from prison. Aside from the aforementioned merch sales, he also shattered an Instagram record.

(Warning: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special spoilers will be found below.)

Have you had a chance to watch Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special yet? Good, now re-watch it. It’s the only way to get every joke, both because there’s so many one-liners that it’s best way to process them all and literally because different paths have different jokes. (Pro tip: when you get to the scene of Kimmy and the Reverend in the woods, make sure you choose all three violent options before clicking the “right” one. You’ll know it when you see it, and trust me, it’s worth it.) Most of “Kimmy vs. The Reverend” is supremely silly, because Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a supremely silly show, but there’s hilariously savage joke involving Game of Thrones.

After landing in small-town West Virginia to find the Reverend’s second bunker, Kimmy and Titus go to the local “watering hole,” the Living Canary, where Titus tries to impress the locals by singing “Free Bird.” Viewers are given two options: he knows the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic, or he thinks he knows it. The correct answer is “he knows it,” and you get to enjoy Tituss Burgess’ lovely singing voice, but if you choose the second option, he offends the bar patrons with a song he learned when he worked at a pet shop and the employees needed to off-load a “problem bird.” This causes a riot in the bar and a call to the local police, resulting in gun shots and, presumably, the deaths of Kimmy and Titus.

Cut to fellow Mole Woman Cyndee Pokorny, who says, “Okay, I don’t think that was the right ending, but I don’t know, I’m not a writer. I mean, I was on staff for the last season of Game of Thrones. They did all my ideas!” So, if you’re wondering who to blame about that whole Bron thing (still weird!), it’s Cyndee’s fault.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt interactive special is live, dammit. It’s a miracle.

View Entire Post ›

A week ago, a concert venue in Arkansas, TempleLive, declared its intention to host a concert by Bishop Gunn frontperson Travis McCready. Although the event organizers had planned social distancing measures to be put in place, the show still raised some eyebrows due to when it was scheduled: The concert was set to take place on May 15, which is before the state had cleared live music to take place once again on May 18. So, the governor has shut the show down, as Little Rock’s Fox 16 reports.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Governor Asa Hutchinson revealed that the Arkansas Department Of Health has issued a cease and desist order against the venue, citing several issues with the performance as planned. Aside from the premature date, the show was set to have 229 in attendance, even though a state directive only permits audiences of up to 50 members.

Ultimately, Hutchinson said, “In terms of the concert, there will be a cease and desist order that will be issued by the Department Of Health directing that that concert not take place, which is an official legal order and directive that will go out.”

When announcing the show, TempleLive laid out a series of social distancing protocols, writing, “Venue will be sanitized by independent third party prior to each event via fog sprayers. Masks will be required by all attendees and employees. […] 6 feet of separation from all seating groups or fan pods. 10 person limit in all restrooms. […] Temperatures of attendees to be taken at entry points.”

As of this post, the event page for the show is still live on the TempleLive website, and tickets are still available for purchase on Ticketmaster.

Watch Hutchinson’s statement above, beginning at about 23 minutes into the video.

View Entire Post ›

View Entire Post ›