After years of multiple Marvel and Star Wars-inspired stories, it’s time for another franchise to get an origin story. Sure, we all love learning about Baby Yoda and Groot’s silly little adventures, but what about some good, old-fashioned royalty drama that is not based on real life? The good news is that Netflix agrees, and so, dear reader, the beloved Bridgerton universe is expanding!
After being announced last spring, Netflix has finally unveiled the first look at Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story which will focus on the titular Queen’s rise to power in the Bridgerton universe.
Golda Rosheuvel (Queen Charlotte), Adjoa Andoh (Lady Agatha Danbury), and Ruth Gemmell (Lady Violet Bridgerton) will each reprise their roles from the initial series, with India Amarteifio stepping in as a young Charlotte. The streamer unveiled the first picture of Amarteifio in all her royal glory.
Dearest readers, rejoice in a formal introduction to royalty herself, India Amarteifio, who along with the incomparable duo of Golda Rosheuvel and Adjoa Andoh will reveal the origins of Your Majesty. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is on the way, indeed. pic.twitter.com/mE7OcH5gRu
Queen Charlotte is known for her fancy updos, extravagant dresses, and, most importantly, her love of gossip, so this should be a good spinoff for any Bridgerton fan. According to the press release, the limited series is expected to follow the rise of Queen Charlotte, and how the young Queen’s marriage to King George inspired both “a great love story and a societal shift, creating the world of the Ton inherited by the characters in Bridgerton.”
The news was revealed in a new clip featuring the show’s actresses ahead of Netflix’s Tudum event this weekend, which is expected to show off more from the upcoming series, along with various Netflix news and first looks.
No release date has been set for the series, but you can stream all episodes of Bridgerton on Netflix. Season three of Bridgerton is expected to hit the streamer sometime next year.
Girls are bombarded with messages from a very young age telling them that they can’t, that is too big, this is too heavy, those are too much.
Unless someone takes the time to show them otherwise, they will grow up believing those limitations are true—and never reach their full potential. Girls at Work, Inc., a nonprofit based in Manchester, NH, wants to change that by showing girls that they CAN.
Elaine Hamel founded Girls at Work, Inc. in 2000 because to her, empowerment isn’t just a buzzword but a way of life. Their mission is to challenge traditional norms and normalize girl power, focusing specifically on uplifting and supporting inner city girls between the ages of 8 and 18, who need stability, safety, and confidence.
The girls attending summer camps or after-school programs work in groups and learn how to problem solve, communicate, and use tools to build something practical. Hamel believes that learning how to use power tools shows the girls that they can do anything they put their minds to, better preparing them for a bright future.
Photo courtesy of TD Bank
Elaine’s forward-thinking, positive leadership, and passion for the community is exactly why TD Bank chose to honor her for the 2022 #TDThanksYou campaign, a North American campaign demonstrating the bank’s gratitude and commitment to their customers by celebrating, recognizing, and thanking unsung heroes in exciting and meaningful ways. Hamel is one of six honorees recognized this year and was presented with power tools and gift certificates to purchase additional items needed to enhance the program.
Hamel understands what it feels like to hear the word “can’t.” Growing up, she struggled to find her place in a world that seemed to be built by, and for, men. As a kid she loved to “create or fix things” and always found something to tinker with. Before long, she discovered not only did she enjoy building and repairing things, but she was very good at it.
She spent the next several decades breaking down the multitude of barriers that a woman pursuing a career as a general contractor faced in the 1980s and 1990s.
“It was really brutal when I first started out in construction,” Hamel said. “The men were so cruel. But I grew up with five brothers and I was used to it. I told myself I’d be the boss one day…and now I am.”
Photo courtesy of TD Bank
The process of learning how to become stronger and more confident in her natural abilities sent her career soaring, and drives her life’s work—empowering girls to take up space and take control of their own lives.
“These are kids who grapple with neglect, food insecurity, and extreme poverty,” said Hamel. “They’re not soaring in school because they’re in survival mode. They’re hungry and unable to focus and learn.” Hamel’s solution is a fully stocked food pantry, where the girls can shop for groceries before heading home. Girls at Work, Inc. also has a “kindness closet,” stocked with clothing, shoes, outerwear and other items.
After addressing their immediate needs, the girls are ready to get to work. “There are many programs out there devoted to teaching trades and skills to girls,” said Hamel, “But this is about learning how to think critically and problem solve. Pushing through that is what actually empowers them.”
The nonprofit is a vital part of the community, relying heavily on donations and volunteers to keep it going. For example, a club of retired men volunteer their time to pre-cut the lumber for Girls at Work, Inc.’s projects. The girls use that lumber to create things—like picnic tables, benches, and birdhouses—which in turn are donated to local organizations.
Hamel says she’s built with over 20,000 girls so far, and her goal is to hit one million. Her dream is to secure funding to open up new locations to serve even more communities and says that watching these girls’ step into their power and believe in themselves is what keeps her moving forward. The world needs more heroes like her.
Freddie Gibbs proved his versatility this week. On Tuesday (September 20), the Gary, Indiana-bred rapper visited Funk Flex on Hot 97 and performed a freestyle, taking shots at disgraced R&B figure R. Kelly and rival Benny Butcher. Today (September 23), Gibbs shows his vulnerable side with the introspective new single “Dark Hearted.”
The James Blake-produced track opens with an ethereal beat and Gibbs proclaiming, “I hope the chopper never jam on me.” He chronicles his struggles while entrenched in “murder land,” reminiscing on being in a crowded apartment where they pushed molly and powder, and prays for God’s protection. He acknowledges, “I know I took a risk with this sh*t when I put my hands on it” and laments that “this game got me dark-hearted,” but his most brutally honest admission comes when he expresses fear that “police might shoot and kill me over my dark skin.”
“Dark Hearted” comes after “Too Much” featuring Moneybagg Yo, Gibbs’ first release of the year, arrived earlier this month. The singles are generating momentum for Soul Sold Separately, his major-label debut studio album due next Friday (September 30) via Warner Records. Gibbs unveiled the full tracklist earlier this week.
Gibbs told Funk Flex on Tuesday that he’s “coming for album of the year” with his new one, “like I did last year.” His first Grammy nomination was earned for Alfredo, his May 2020 collaborative album with Alchemist, under the Best Rap Album category at the most recent ceremony.
Soul Sold Separately is out 9/30 via Warner Records. Pre-order it here.
Freddie Gibbs is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Ana de Armas and director Andrew Dominik will bring Blonde to Netflix on September 28. As you’re undoubtedly aware, the film’s not a standard biopic but an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ expansive novel about a somewhat fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe. The film’s gathered up mixed reviews with a hefty dose of praise for de Armas, and it’s worth noting that even Chris Evans was bowled over by the star’s transformation and couldn’t tell subject from actor apart by looking at a photo.
The film also received an NC-17 rating with Dominik reacting by calling this an unwarranted case of “Eisenhower morality” in an age where Cardi B’s “WAP” ruled the charts. Still, Dominik declared that the film contains something “to offend everyone,” and Ana De Armas is now here (in a new Varietycover feature) to talk about her trepidation for what scenes will go viral once the film streams. As Variety indicates, she brought up the subject on her own, and it involves nude scenes. She’s upset about what will happen but told herself that she cannot control the situation, which… oh boy:
“I know what’s going to go viral,” she says, “and it’s disgusting. It’s upsetting just to think about it. I can’t control it; you can’t really control what they do and how they take things out of context. I don’t think it gave me second thoughts; it just gave me a bad taste to think about the future of those clips.”
De Armas continued, saying that she filmed scenes for this movie that she never would have otherwise done, and “I did it for her, and I did it for Andrew.” The film earned a 14-minute standing ovation at the recent Venice Film Festival, and hopefully, audiences will handle the situation maturely when they see Ana’s transformation for themselves on September 28.
In light of the George Floyd protests in Spring of 2020, Paramount made the decision to cancel COPS, the long-running reality TV series that followed police officers around on patrol. The show had already been weathering concerns about its exploitative content, and with the nation grappling with the topic of police brutality, Paramount pulled the plug as other shows like Live PD followed suit.
However, conservatives have long been critical of the Black Lives Matter protests, so in a not exactly surprising development, Fox Nation has resurrected COPS. The right-leaning streaming service will have new episodes next week, and according to a statement from Fox Nation president Jason Klarman, whoever the heck subscribes to Fox Nation is pumped to see minorities and poverty-stricken communities get shoved into police cruisers. It’s their favorite.
“It has been nearly one year since we greenlit COPS and the reaction has been positively overwhelming,” Klarman said in a statement via Mediaite. “Our subscribers continue to flock to the series and we’re excited to provide our engaged audience with more of the exclusive content they have come to rely on from FOX Nation.”
The move to Fox Nation also corroborates reports that COPSnever stopped filming. Following its cancellation by Paramount, Langely Productions, the maker of COPS, “quietly” continued to film new episodes in Spokane, Washington well into November 2020. Those episodes were reportedly filmed to fulfill oversea commitments, but it appears the show was able to find a new home with an audience who did not lose sleep over the death of George Floyd, or countless others.
In her new video for “Ain’t No Love” featuring 2 Chainz, Baby Tate makes a show of getting pampered at the nail salon with her crew (fan-shaped with the extra details, okay?). The Atlanta native then hits the streets to flaunt her fresh looks, posting up at the gas station to run through some choreography in front of her tricked-out jeep before hitting a diner for a late-night meal. It’s a fitting theme, considering the single is promoting her upcoming mixtape, Mani/Pedi, and takes inspiration from the video for the ATL classic it samples: Ciara’s 2004 Goodies standout “Oh,” which intriguingly enough featured 2 Chainz’s former label boss, Ludacris. We love a good homage.
In addition to dropping the “Ain’t No Love” video, Tate also shared the release date for her upcoming tape, the follow-up to her breakout 2020 EP After The Rain. The tracklist includes the previously released “Dancing Queen,” as well as a remix of “S.L.O. (Slut Him Out)” featuring fellow Atlanta rapper Kali titled “Slut Him Out Again.” Besides these singles, Tate built anticipation for the project with a series of freestyles and features, including the “extendo verse” from JID’s “Surround Sound,” a feature on Landstrip Chip’s “Wrong Way,” and a fun verse over the TikTok hit “Period Ahh, Period Uhh.”
Check out the tracklist for Mani/Pedi, out 9/30 through Raedio, below. Pre-save it here.
Donald Trump’s Wednesday night interview with Sean Hannity had everyone talking — largely because of his insistence that, as President of the United States, he had the authority to declassify documents with his brain. But that’s just one of the reasons why Seth Meyers thinks that the former president might have “lost his f***ing mind.”
On Thursday night, Meyers talked about Trump’s newly discovered Jedi mind trick-like ability to declassify documents through sheer mind power, but was also taken aback by Trump’s suggestion that what the FBI was really looking for when they rummaged through his Palm Beach home — and didn’t even have the decency to take their shoes off while walking through his bedroom — were… Hillary Clinton’s emails?!
“[B]y far the craziest part of the interview,” according to Meyers, “came when Trump fully unraveled and seemed to suggest that the FBI was maybe searching Mar-a-Lago to look for Hillary Clinton’s emails. It made so little sense, even Hannity had to jump in and stop him.”
Trump, in a bold attempt to point the finger in a whole other direction, told Hannity that there’s “a lot of speculation, because of what they did — the severity of the FBI coming and raiding Mar-a-Lago — were they looking for the Hillary Clinton emails that were deleted, but they are around someplace.”
First of all: There is no speculation of the sort other than in Trump’s mind, which we guess now makes it official (he just has to think it, after all). But more importantly: Even Hannity seemed unclear whether Trump was asking a question or making a statement. So he interjected with a “Wait, wait — you’re not saying you had it?” To which Trump replied no, but again suggested that the FBI “may have thought” Hillary’s emails were there.
“Wait, WHAT?,” was Meyers’ — and, well, pretty much everyone else’s — reaction to this new line of defense:
The FBI searched your private resort to look for Hillary Clinton’s emails? The ones you supposedly have been looking for forever… But man, what a twist. What a twist it would be if Trump accidentally admitted that he’s the one who stole all of Hillary Clinton’s missing emails. I mean, honestly, that would have been worth it. Even M. Night Shyamalan would have been like, ‘F**k. Hats off!’
You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 9:50 mark.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – This poor miserable goof
I’ll be honest here: I did not expect to enjoy House of the Dragon this much. I thought I was done with Game of Thrones and all of its various kings and queens and magic doodads. I started watching only because it was kind of an obligation for this job. (I am very professional.) But now, a few weeks into it all, I find myself hooked all over again. It’s a truly shocking development. No one is more surprised by it than me. And there’s one main reason why it’s happened: King Viserys and the misery that is constantly stretched across his poor face.
Look at this guy.
HBO
Look at him try to hide the fact that he’s just having the worst time anyone has ever had while also sitting on a throne and commanding a squadron of fire-breathing dragons.
HBO
I love him so much. I get excited whenever he shows up on screen, kind of like I did whenever Philip Jennings showed up to Mope his way through a scene on The Americans. I think if Viserys ever experiences actual happiness, even for a moment, I will be so disappointed I might stay in bed the following Monday. His misery is fueling me right now. I feel okay about it.
To be fair, the man does have legitimate reasons to be having a bad time. For one, his… uh, flesh is kind of rotting and falling off of his body. Which does not seem fun.
HBO
And then there’s the thing with his daughter’s wedding, which featured both of them making these faces before any of the real messy stuff went down. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more accurate representation of raising and being a teenager. It could be the poster for a CBS sitcom about a single dad. It’s thrilling to me.
hbo
Then these things happened at the wedding:
His snotty younger brother showed up — fresh off of murdering his own wife — despite being kind of banished from the realm for being a devious little snot all the time
His child bride showed up late and wearing a green dress, which I learned later is basically a declaration of war on this show
His daughter’s not-so-secret boyfriend beat her new husband’s not-so-secret boyfriend to death with his fists during the reception
His snotty brother and rebellious daughter started dancing and eyeing each other real sexy-like in front of everyone
Look at these two.
HBO
Sooooo yeah. My dude has every right to constantly look like he threw up in his mouth a little bit and decided to swallow it. The next episode jumps forward 10 years from the end of this one. Viserys is still alive, somehow, despite his own body and offspring and wife trying to kill him in various ways. This is great news. For me. Probably not for him. Which makes it great news for me. I hope he lives forever and mopes around like a royal Charlie Brown for six seasons. I hope he frowns so hard his whole face slides off of his skull, which it actually might, given the flesh thing we mentioned earlier. I had no clue I needed to see Paddy Considine doing this much face-acting on a show about dragons and incest, but here we are.
One more for the road.
HBO
This poor miserable dope. I hope he is never happy for another day in his life. Again, for me. It’s nothing personal. Kind of.
ITEM NUMBER TWO – Meanwhile, on 9-1-1…
FOX
Here’s what happened, and I need you to stay with me on this one: 9-1-1 returned this week with an episode that opened in the sky, in a blimp, where the pilot and co-pilot were having a conversation about a nosy mother-in-law, for kind of a while as they floated through the sky. If you read that sentence and started thinking “Hmm, if I know anything about 9-1-1 from all the times Brian has rambled about it, it sure sounds like something crazy is going to happen to this blimp,” congratulations, you are very intuitive. Or you saw the screencap at the top of this section with the flaming blimp. Or both. There are a lot of ways you could have figured this one out. The artwork for this season full-on featured a crashing blimp. I just wrote about it the other week. This was the worst-kept secret in television history.
Anyway, they dialed 9-1-1 from the clouds and had this conversation with Jennifer Love Hewitt, who, if we are to believe this show, handles every emergency call in Los Angeles.
FOXFOX
Perfect. Succinct, accurate, objectively hilarious. No notes from me. My only complaint is that I’ve never had a legitimate opportunity in my life to use the phrase “we have a blimp emergency.” There’s still time, but I will need to hurry.
But yes, they were correct, the blimp went down, straight into a soccer stadium. I need to stress to you that the whole series of events looked like it cost the production about $85. I loved it very much. Look at this.
FOX
Okay, stick with me some more, because here’s where things get crazy, and yes I realize we’ve already seen a blimp crash into a stadium. To the bullet points:
Chaos ensues, with people running and screaming and fleeing the stadium
A girl and her mom get separated just moments after having a vague conversation about living a normal life like a normal kid
The girl goes down and her backpack opens and some guy sees weird tubes sticking out and shouts “IT’S A BOMB”
Angela Bassett rushes into the stadium to investigate and discovers it is not a bomb, but an artificial heart that the girl carries with her to stay alive
It is malfunctioning and the mom has the backup but no one knows where she is amid the commotion
Jennifer Love Hewitt just like Googles stuff over the phone and talks Angela Bassett through troubleshooting an artificial heart while a blimp balances precariously on the scaffolding of a soccer stadium, which is not a collection of words I ever expected to type
They find the mom and get things working and everyone is saved, including the blimp pilots, who have been pulled out of the wreckage by firefighters as this is going on
Which is great. Classic 9-1-1 piece of business. Very proud of everyone involved. But here’s the best part. Look at this screencap from the aftermath of it all…
FOX
Do you see it?
Do you see the credits on the screen in the corner?
That’s right.
All of this happened before the opening credits had finished.
BEFORE THE OPENING CREDITS HAD FINISHED.
We were not even 10 minutes into the episode and all of this had already happened.
What a beautiful television program.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – This was really just an incredible week for the cast and crew of Peaky Blinders
netflix
Two pieces of Peaky Blinders-related news, both kind of incredible in their own way. First, this, which I can’t believe is true: The people who made Peaky Blinders — the gritty and violent British drama where bootleggers smoke cigarettes and fight each other, often while covered in about an inch of industrial soot — are bringing it to the stage for a dance-heavy production. Please read this.
“Through dance theatre ‘Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby’ picks up the story of the Peaky Blinders at the end of World War One, following Tommy Shelby and Grace Burgess through their passionate love affair,” reads the logline. “While Tommy is building his empire, Grace is operating as an undercover agent for Special Branch on a mission to get close to the heart of Tommy’s gang. As the story unfolds, many hearts are broken.”
That’s… it’s fascinating. It would be like if David Chase made a dancing Sopranos musical, which I now want to see more than anything else in the world. Show me Paulie Walnuts sashaying into a restaurant and gliding to his table. I am so mad this doesn’t exist. Dammit. I did this to myself.
And yet, somehow, this is not the wildest Peaky-related story of the week. Not even close. How could it be when Tom Hardy — who played a mumble-mouthed bootlegger on the show — is just running around winning martial arts tournaments in his spare time. From a local news report in Europe.
Danny Appleby, from Ormesby, was stunned when he discovered his opponent at a Jiu-Jitsu tournament at the weekend was Mad Max Fury Road actor Tom Hardy.
The 44-year-old star turned up unannounced at the REORG Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Wolverhampton.
This is probably my favorite thing… maybe ever? Definitely this week. Tom Hardy — BANE — is just popping up to whomp on dudes in his free time. It’s somehow both shocking and not surprising at all, given everything we know and don’t know about Tom Hardy. I must know more. Let’s read on.
“It’s been crazy on social media,” he says, “I was waiting match-side for the semi-final in Wolverhampton when Tom showed up. I didn’t know he was going to be there. And they expected me to remain composed,” he laughs.
“I recognised him straightaway. Everyone knows who Tom Hardy is, don’t they?
“I was shell-shocked. He said ‘just forget it’s me and do what you would normally do’.”
Ugggghhhh this is so cool. It’s so cool it actually bothers me a little bit. Like, come on, Tom Hardy. Chill out a little. The rest of us have to be out here too, and we just cannot compete with “an A-list movie star who sometimes shows up at little jiu-jitsu tournaments for kicks and wins adorable little victory certificates.”
Oh. Wait. I’m sorry. Did I not already mention the adorable little victory certificate? Because that actually might be the best part of all of this. I mean…
I hope he frames that and hangs it up in a prominent place in his house. Maybe right next to his, uh… [quick goes to Tom Hardy’s Wikipedia page]… his 2011 BAFTA Rising Star award. Or maybe he just has a trophy case full of these. What if Tom Hardy has like two dozen trophies and certificates like this, like a little kid who displays all his karate awards? Someone needs to investigate this. Not me. But someone.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR – Good for Lacey Chabert, honestly
There’s this big article in Variety this week about Candace Cameron and her quest to start a conservative Christian Christmas powerhouse to rival places like Hallmark and Netflix that churn those movies out 40 per year. You can read the whole thing if you want to. Here’s the link. I want to talk about something else, though. I want to talk about the financials of starring in these movies. I want to talk about people making crazyyyy money by appearing in these movies. Not crazy like billions or anything, but… at least more than I expected.
The key points are as follows:
Hallmark was paying people $200-300k for a couple weeks of work on these movies
Which is wild when you consider former Party of Five and Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert has, to date, made 27 Hallmark Christmas movies, which is a real fact I looked up and everything
Netflix swooped in recently and just started heaving money at people to get their own holiday stockpile loaded up
Like, so much money.
When Netflix came into the game, it was willing to up the ante. Since its overall budgets are more than double what cable networks have, it’s able to land stars like Dolly Parton, Goldie Hawn, Vanessa Hudgens, Kurt Russell and Rob Lowe. One source tells Variety that while some of those movies were pitched elsewhere, Netflix was the only place able to pay bigger leading stars, often shelling out paychecks of more than $1 million per film.
This is pretty funny today, now, with all the news about Netflix struggling a bit and being buried in debt. It’s kind of like this tweet but with Holiday Movie Salaries in place of Candles:
Food $200 Data $150 Rent $800 Candles $3,600 Utility $150 someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying
But whatever. Good for the people cashing these checks. Good for Lacey Chabert, especially. This isn’t even the only source of income related to these cheesy movies. It turns out there’s a whole economy based around it, complete with conventions attended by thousands of people. This paragraph is fascinating to me in ways I have been struggling to articulate for days.
In addition to pricy day passes, fans can take part in a professional photo opps with stars like Lacey Chabert, Danica McKellar or Jesse Metcalfe, or buy an autograph for $80. Plus, each actor is paid a guaranteed rate to attend for the weekend — which can be anywhere from $10,000 to $75,000.
And, on the heels of this report, Hallmark went out and dropped this year’s holiday movie schedule. Guess who got the primo post-Thanksgiving Saturday night spot?
Saturday, Nov. 26: Haul Out the Holly
Stars: Lacey Chabert, Wes Brown, Ellen Travolta, Peter Jacobson, Melissa Peterman and Stephen Tobolowsky
Premieres 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Emily arrives home, hoping to visit her parents, only to discover that they are leaving on a trip of their own. As she stays at their house for the holidays, their HOA is determined to get Emily to participate in the neighborhood’s many Christmas festivities.
Please consider this your periodic reminder that everything is somehow 40-50 percent weirder than you assume it is, always, often in ways you could not have comprehended before they were presented to you in black and white. Also, that Lacey Chabert is doing great. Good for her.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – Please think about this one for a couple of minutes this weekend
Three things are important to note here, and then we can move on…
ONE: Sometimes Danny DeVito, Hollywood legend and multi-decade veteran of the stage and screen, will post pictures of his foot on Twitter under the heading “TROLLFOOT.”
TWO: This is deeply funny to me, just the thing where he has leaned into being the weirdest dude all the time now, up to and including the thing last week where he did an ad for Jersey Mike’s Subs where he appeared to be extremely horny for hoagies.
THREE: Please take maybe five minutes at some point in the next few days and picture yourself driving down a California highway on a sunny September day, just picturesque and perfect and everything The Beach Boys ever sang about, and then you look out your window and Danny DeVito is lying on his back with his leg in the air trying to take a picture of his bare foot.
I guess that’s Hollywood for you.
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If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Matthew:
We need a rule about movie trailers in theaters. Specifically, horror movie trailers. More specifically, no horror movie trailers except before horror or horror-adjacent movies. People who want to watch a movie about demonic possession or a creepy doll or a haunted house know about these movies already. Those of us hitting up a matinee of Confess, Fletch or like, the Marvel movie du jour don’t know, or, and this is my point, want to know that apparently a movie about an infectious demonic smile that kills you is coming out. Jason Blum is creative. He’ll find a different way to advertise.
Freakin’ THANK YOU, Matthew. God. What a good and simple rule, which I say as someone who loves seeing movies in a theater but very much does not enjoy horror movies, in general. It’s not that I’m some big fraidy cat baby — or at least not just that — as much as it is that I don’t like being scared in real life and do not want to scare myself on purpose in my leisure time. Separate these suckers. Gimme cool action movie trailers before cool action movies and cute rom-com trailers before cute rom-coms. I do not want to be reminded that I’m a huge baby right before I watch Fast & Furious 16: Getting A Little Slower, Actually because they ran a trailer for a movie called Demon Orphanage or something.
Leave me alone.
I just want to see Vin Diesel save the world using cars.
A suspected gang of thieves who allegedly stole items worth €300,000 (£260,000) from first-class passengers on French trains has been captured.
It is thought they stole luggage from passengers after sitting beside them on high-speed trains crossing the country.
Hmm. Yes, I am interested in the train heist. It feels almost old-timey at this point, in the age of hackers and cybercrimes, just dudes sitting down next to rich French people and being like “Hey, look over there!” and then making off with their valuables. I kind of respect it in a way.
One man, aged 57, is said to have posed as a woman, wearing a wig.
I like to believe no one asked him to do this and he just showed up with a woman’s wig on all proud of himself and everyone in his crew groaned and was like “Jesus Christ, Gary, we talked about this.” It also brings me to the thing that hooked me with this story in the first place: the headline. Look at this pile of words: “French police nab first-class wig gang suspects.”
FIRST CLASS WIG GANG SUSPECTS
It’s beautiful.
The alleged modus operandi was to steal items during station stops after the unsuspecting owners got off the train to stretch their legs or have a smoke.
It’s so low-tech and simple that it’s almost charming. No hacking or trickery, just wigs and waiting. I mean, definitely do not do this. Especially do not do this to me. I like my stuff and want to keep it. But if I can’t talk you out of it, if you are truly dead-set on robbing people on a train, I suppose this is better than resorting to violence. Right?
I hope this is the argument their lawyer uses to defend them in court.
Police were first alerted in April when a passenger reported the theft of a briefcase containing jewellery worth €50,000, local media say.
Four months later, police discovered a hoard of stolen goods in the Marseille flat.
Please make this series at once and release it on a streaming service by the end of the year. Pierce Brosnan as the ringleader. Cousin Greg from Succession in a wig. And so on. These are good ideas. Much better than the ones in the actual crime itself.
A certain section of Jeopardy! fans will find a reason to complain about anything, whether it’s a host’s outfit or winning streaks or supposedly inconsistent rules. But no one had better grumble about Martha Bath, the contestant who appeared on the game show in 1972 — and again in 2022, and won.
“This is not your first rodeo,” host host Ken Jennings prompted Bath, a retired CPA from Seattle, Washington, during the Q&A segment of Wednesday’s episode. “That is correct,” she said. “Fifty years ago this spring, I was on the original daytime show with Art Fleming in New York.” She won $40 “and a set of encyclopedias,” Bath added, “and I still have them.” She took home more than 40 bucks and dusty old books this time.
Bath beat out returning champion Emmett Stanton and sports journalist Christopher Pennant to snatch the victory. Despite going into Final Jeopardy! with just $15,400 compared to Stanton’s $22,000, Bath nailed the correct answer and wagered her entire prize pot, giving her a winning total of $30,800.
“Or, if we count 1972, $30,840,” Jennings joked. Unfortunately, Bath’s reign was short-lived. She returned during Thursday’s episode and did well for himself, finishing with $26,100 after Final Jeopardy! (the clue: “In 2011, Leland, Mississippi, where Jim Henson grew up, honored Henson & his Muppets by renaming a bridge this, also a song title”). But fellow contestant Michael Menkhus, a data analyst from Kansas City, Missouri, also got it right (“What is Rainbow Connection?”) for a one-day total of $31,201.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a movie that I, like a lot of people, want to love. But, unlike the films in the series that would follow, it keeps a viewer at arms length. (I wrote about this last year when the original theatrical cut was released on 4K.) In the early 2000s a Director’s Cut overseen by director Robert Wise and producer David Fein was released on DVD that significantly tightened the film and was met with much praise, but then kind of faded into obscurity because, well, it was only available on DVD and on today’s televisions no longer looked that great. And the problem was the effects for the Director’s Cut were done in standard definition, meaning to upgrade them to Blu-ray or 4K would need another massive overhaul of the film.
Well, that’s exactly what David Fein did. (Robert Wise passed away in 2005.) This is literally his life’s work: finally releasing Star Trek: The Motion Picture the way it was always meant to be seen. And the new 4K disc is a gorgeous, stunning creation that is literally one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. (If you think I’m being hyperbolic, here’s where I’ll remind you that the effects were done by Douglas Trumbull, who of course also did 2001: A Space Odyssey.)
As Fein explains ahead, the problem with the theatrical cut was, simply, it wasn’t done. It feels long and slow because the movie hadn’t been edited properly. Scenes that may only last two or three seconds too long, or literally one frame, add up over the course of a movie to make it feel long. Now, after 1500 or so edits, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film that finally feels properly paced, looks stunning, and, after long last, no longer keeps the viewer at arm’s length. Ahead, David Fein tells us just how he got this accomplished.
There’s not a lot of extra footage in the Director’s Cut or anything like that, but it just feels like a better-flowing movie. Why is that? It’s hard to pinpoint.
Well anytime you do a film, the first thing that you do is a quick assembly of what the picture’s going to be from beginning to end. You put everything in and that’s when they say, well, we have the five-hour cut, or whatever it was. Those are incredibly dull when you just get whatever it is from beginning to end assembled. The problem here was, they had to fine-tune that the best they could, those little pieces. But, because of the problem with the visual effects – and the fact that they had a required 130-minute running time – they didn’t know when the effects were coming in. So they just strung out the film and then put the effects in completely as from first frame to last frame and then were intending to go through and fine-tune and cut it.
What you are seeing (in the theatrical cut) is one long piece of assembled material that they never had the chance to fine-tune it to get the flow down and make that work. So, now it’s a matter of similar work, but there are 1500 edits in this project. In order to cut out single frames every now and then. Why would there be a single frame? The visual effects would come in and there’d be multiple ships in the shot, and some of the ships hadn’t even started moving yet because they just put first to last frame because they knew they would tighten it.
So what you’re seeing now is something that has just been tightened. And, as a lot of people have said, when they’re doing artistic sculpting where you’re just chipping away a little bit at the time, you have to fine-tune a picture to make sure that it works. Robert Wise always had a preview screening. This was a film, before his premiere, he didn’t have a preview screening – and then went on to have 20 years of preview screening.
So the preview screening was literally the premiere.
Yeah. There’s a comment where somebody says, “Well I had the film wet.”
Right, when a film is finished literally right before it hits theaters.
Right, but the catch here is that Robert Wise literally had the last reel of the film literally dripping with chemicals. And he personally flew it to Washington D.C. for the premiere and slept with the film under his bed that night and then brought it into the theater and they premiered it. And we have stories in the feature ads of the editor just talking about watching this and just shrinking down in his seat because the littlest things that you knew you needed to fix, that you just knew, “Okay, we’ll fix that as soon as we get to that section,” but they never got a chance to do it. It is absolutely a testament to the talent of talented people that were there and Robert Wise’s brilliance as a filmmaker that was able to take all of this and make it into a coherent movie that worked. And it was very successful anyway! Even though what you saw was basically this assembly of stuff that implied what was going to go on. But it didn’t even have Spock crying, which was one of the points of the film, was to have that moment in the film. They even had scenes that they took out that they had intended to put back in when they fine-tuned it.
I’m glad you mentioned Spock crying, his whole arc in this movie is much more clear in this version. In the theatrical, he just seems cold. In this it’s very clear he finds emotions to understand the difference between machines and humanity.
And as unemotional as he’s trying to be in the film, that’s that evolution for him. And he’s trying to be focused on being unemotional. But that character has evolved just like V’Ger, they’re connected. V’Ger and Spock, it’s going along together, so it’s radical. It’s important that they be together.
I’ve always thought this movie was pretty, but this version in 4K, I was just blown away by how gorgeous it looks. You’ve made one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen.
And you know what’s exciting about that? Is you just said, “You made one of the most gorgeous films you’ve ever seen,” that you’ve been watching for 40 years. They were so rushed they took four days, just four days, in order to get the film color graded and it had to be even and consistent in order to let whatever they were putting in work without causing more time. And that four-day rushed color was what they stayed with as, “Oh, that must be the finished film.” Up until now.
So we didn’t have the opportunity back then to give it the proper color grading that it required. Plus HDR today, the amazing ability to pull so much more color and quality in the image, including unbelievable brightness and darkness from levels that were never possible before. Using the tools today to do it properly gave us that beautiful film and every single shot now has your tension focused. Look shot for shot, it’s where is your focus going to be? And that’s where your eyes are drawn to, which was never had that much attention given to it before, which is what you do in the good movie today.
So in ’79, if the movie’s obviously not quite finished, why did it have to come out when it did? Is it because The Empire Strikes Back was coming in a few months? Was that a concern? Why did it have to come out when it did?
It was a business decision that you have to give them credit for. I mean, Star Wars came out and it changed the world and even in merchandising and marketing and everything else.
And because of that, this was changed from the Phase 2 television series to a full movie.
Right. But knowing that it was such a phenomenon and so much of a media creation, Paramount had created so many licensees from Star Trek the franchise that there were McDonald’s tie-ins, there were book tie-ins, there were tie-ins everywhere. Plus there were agreements that they made with the theaters that you’re going to have it on this date for that holiday season and everybody cleared their schedule, that it came down to the point where it became necessary because of all the promises that were made that the film had to come out. It was amazing that the film was so successful and we’re blessed for that. People saw what it was to be. And Doug Drexler [VFX artist] was at our Director’s Cut premiere and I still remember his comment, it’s one of my favorite comments I’ve heard today, which is, “The Motion Picture today is the movie we always wished it would be.”
So how do you go to Paramount and basically say, “Hey, you know how we needed money to make the Director’s Cut in the early 2000s for DVD? Well, we have to update all the effects for 4K disc.” How do you convince anyone to let you do that?
Well, it’s simple. Well, it’s not simple. We have the 40th anniversary coming out, so I re-approached them again, but there’s been a lot of evolutionary changes in technology that made me realize that we could do it effectively and with the quality that we wanted to and not have it be a crazy film. Just have it be what it needed to be. But the fact of the matter is, is that it’s 4K that came around and the new evolutions of technology that made me finally want to come back and do it. And I said to them from the start, I’ll come back, but the focus is, I want to create a new negative. It needs to be a new negative. We can’t have any other version exist as the movie. This has to be finished now in negative form or at least the digital equivalent – where we have digital negatives now – so that it has a chance to be the film from now till eternity. So with a theatrical Dolby Atmos mix…
I was going to say, this movie also sounds incredible.
The blaster beam, that’s the boom sound, is V’ger’s voice essentially. It goes right over your head, in top speakers in front in Atmos. I also promised Robert Wise years ago – he had me come into his house and we often talk at the little breakfast nook that we were at – and he had me promise that, no matter what, I would continue to work forever until we made sure that the film had its negative. That had the same chance as any other film in Paramount’s archive or the crown jewel of the company. So that was what I came back to the studio with and said, “If we do that, we know we also can do it for revivals and have it be that same film quality because now we’re finishing the film.” So they’ve been many times on and off with the studio that we’d gone back and forth, things never aligned. But this time I knew the time was right, and I had great support from the studio as well. It took us about two and a half to three years just to work out the details this time around, and in that time the archive just did an amazing job locating all that material.
What one shot, for you, went from, “I don’t like this,” to, “Okay now this is good”?
Well, on a side note the signature shot is the reflection of Kirk with the Enterprise. That’s the signature Director’s Edition shot to me. But the one thing you’re talking about is a whole sequence and that’s the probe on the bridge. The probe on the bridge always felt to me like the quality difference was so dramatic that I felt like the movie practically stopped and something else went in there that didn’t match the rest of the film. And we spent a month going in and focused on doing everything we can just make it look like the probe actually showed up on the bridge. And a whole goal, from the beginning, was to smooth out the film. To take away anything that’s distracting. Well, when you had a probe going across the screen going, “boing!,” it completely takes you out of the movie. So these were stabilized. Everything was stabilized, enhanced, cleaned up. The grain that was all over the place was stabilized and smoothed out. Uniforms were there, the sound mix is so much better working on it. Now … it works. And it’s a high point that helped us get to a point where you’re exhilarated at the end of it like you should be. Whereas, you need that time to recover from that high point. So it’s roughly the same edit as the 2001, but it feels differently. Because it now has the highs and lows of any a good story.
Seriously, congratulations on this. I know this has been your life’s work…
I’m very touched by that, to make sure everybody knows that, the film is out now. It has never been before. I did it for you guys.
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