We’ve all praised Steven Soderbergh’s diversity. Each year, he seems to deliver one movie that is vastly different from anything else he’s done, such as putting out the ghost story Presence and the spy film Black Bag within months. But can we spare some of those plaudits for screenwriter Ed Solomon, whose incredible versatility has given us films as varied as Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Men in Black, Now You See Me, and Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move. It’s impossible to predict what either of them will do next, but if they keep giving us movies as surprising, funny, and insightful as art world drama The Christophers, let’s hope they never split up.
The Christophers is essentially a two-hander, so much so that I’d be shocked if it weren’t turned into a play someday. It stars the inexhaustible Ian McKellen as Julian Sklar, a masterful painter who set the art world on fire in the 1960s. A series of gorgeous paintings, known as “The Christophers”, of a young man that Julian clearly loved, sold for millions of dollars. Now, an aging man in his 80s, Julian’s recent painting aren’t selling and even if they do, not for much. He’s mostly known for the paid messages of inspiration that he delivers on a Cameo-esque service, or for his appearances as a Simon Cowell-like judge on Art Fight, a TV show competition where artists gets scrutinized. Julian mostly stays indoors in his overstuffed, shabby London home, which is actually two townhouses smooshed together, one place to work and another to live.
The tone of The Christophers is like an Ocean’s 11-style heist caper, something Soderbergh is obviously quite familiar with. But it’s actually a story about legacy, not just what we leave behind in our chosen field, but as people, as parents. The story gets going when Julian’s money-grubbing children (played by Jessica Gunning and James Corden) hire art critic and restorer Lori Butler, played by Michaela Coel, to complete eight of his unfinished sketches so they can pass them off as the third series in “The Christophers” to sell for millions.
Lori is reluctant. She’s got some pretty strong feelings about Julian, and a past encounter that he certainly doesn’t remember. In fact, his kids use this to convince Lori to worm her way into Julian’s life as an assistant. The plan is to then find the sketches, steal them, and then finish them in his style A low-key art forger, Lori is more than capable of mimicking Julian’s famous brush strokes.
Julian doesn’t make things easy, though. The interview for the job is mostly him huffing and puffing about how much he hates the art business now, how it’s turned commercial, how it no longer appreciates him. At one point he started selling his paintings on street corners, which was a middle finger to art dealers but perhaps also recognition that his work no longer belonged in a gallery. Whatever the case, Julian’s cynical nature has made him volatile, and he throws a curveball at Lori when he demands that the unfinished sketches be burned, destroyed forever.
There are twists and turns everywhere in The Christophers, along with double-crosses, secret agendas, and revenge plots. The art world is cutthroat, and certainly everyone in The Christophers are, too, in their own way. But none of them are treated as truly horrible people, even as they lie, blackmail, and manipulate one another repeatedly. Soderbergh and Solomon see their characters as fully-formed, fleshed out human beings with layers so deep their motivations might not even be clear to them. Everyone is, in their own way, looking for respect, authorship, or credibility. Nothing is colored in flat blacks and whites, but a full, colorful palette of emotions.
McKellen is a livewire as Julian Sklar, racing up and down flights of stairs, boasting loudly at the top of his lungs. Meanwhile, Coel is a perfect opponent as Lori, whose reserved and rational retorts cut through Julian’s bluster with the precision of a master painter’s brushstroke. The Christophers is compact, elegant brilliance, the work of two cinematic artists at the top of their games.
The Christophers opens nationwide on April 17th via NEON.
Did Peter Farrelly pull a fast one on us with his funny, poignant Best Picture winner, Green Book? Because he’s been on a steady downslide ever since, reverting to the kind of moronic, one-joke comedies that he used to make with his brother for years. It’s gotten worse since he made the move to streaming, as The Greatest Beer Run Ever and Ricky Stanicky set an extremely low bar. Somehow, Farrelly has managed to limbo underneath it with Balls Up, a lowbrow condom comedy that shoots its wad early and never recovers.
Penned by the usually reliable duo of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, known for writing the Deadpool movies, Zombieland, and other hits, Balls Up is so bad it might’ve been a screenplay that someone found stuck in the back of a desk and dusted off. The film gets off to a promising start, though. Paul Walter Hauser plays Elijah, who is presenting a revolutionary idea for a condom that covers not only the shaft, but the balls, as well. The plan is for this new prophylactic to win the struggling company the coveted World Cup account, because apparently more condoms get used during the futbol playoffs than for any other sport. Elijah’s a good guy but kind of a dorky stiff, so his colleague Brad, played by Mark Wahlberg, is brought in to sell the idea to Brazil. Somehow, the plan works.
Balls Up has only two real highlights, and one comes early as Benjamin Bratt, playing Senhor Santos, the man who awarded the lucrative World Cup contract, goes on a hilarious alcohol and drug-fueled bender in which he makes prominent use of the condoms. Not only is Santos fired, but the contract is terminated. The company is left in ruins, but Elijah and Brad still got VIP tickets to the World Cup, only to get drunk and cost Brazil to lose the match. Now, the entire country wants their heads, and they have to flee in hopes of escaping with their lives.
It’s a jumbled, disconnected mess, and Hauser and Wahlberg can’t do anything to stop it. They are basically passengers in the next great sequence, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing a Tony Montana-esque drug dealer who kidnaps the duo and forces them to stay in his mansion. Why? Um, it’s not really clear, and you just sorta go with it because Cohen is the only thing keeping Balls Up afloat with his ridiculous accent, hilarious death threats, and squad of buffoonish henchmen who don’t say much but they know a Jefferson Starship tune when they hear it.
Unrolling like a series of random skits smashed together, we eventually find Elijah and Brad stranded in the jungle, facing down a coke-snorting alligator, having their penises attacked by killer fish, and ending up in a commune run by violent anti-poaching hippies. None of it makes sense, and maybe the chaos is meant to be the point but it never coalesces into anything remotely funny. The sad part is there’s such a missed opportunity here, too, because we all know that fans all around the world take soccer extremely seriously. It’s amusing to see how the Brazilians overreact to the loss with murderous outrage, while Elijah constantly reminds them that it’s “just a game.” Of course, it’s more than that to them, and non-fans, specifically Americans, will never understand it. Balls Up could’ve done a lot more to poke fun at these cultural differences but it just misses the mark.
Meanwhile, we’re expected to believe that Elijah and Brad are evolving into better people during all of this craziness, but it never feels genuine. The supporting cast is pretty lousy, too, with Molly Shannon and Daniela Melchior particularly wasted. Balls Up is a misfire in just about every way, and if this actually was the World Cup, Farrelly would be getting hit with a red card.
It’s wild that people of a certain age might only know Martha Stewart because she likes to hang out with Snoop Dogg. Stewart is a lifestyle icon, entrepreneur, and renaissance woman (also an ex-con, but I digress), and she’s about to be played by one of the greatest actresses of all-time, Cate Blanchett, in a biopic titled Good Thing.
Variety reports two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will play Marth Stewart in Good Thing, a biopic from Zola director Janicza Bravo that will center on the media mogul’s life and self-made career as the creator of DIY/cooking show Martha Stewart Living.
It was Stewart herself who dropped this news first, stating on the red carpet that she was “hearing rumors” about it, adding “I think there’s something in the works with Cate Blanchett.”
Turns out Stewart was right.
Bravo’s career took off with the oddball comedy Lemon starring her then-husband Brett Gelman. That led to a much larger project, the viral crime comedy Zola, which she directed for A24. I interviewed her for that, and nearly forgot about it. But this Martha Stewart film is an even bigger deal, and with Blanchett attached, you can bet there will be awards aspirations.
Stewart was recently the focus of a 2024 Netflix documentary, titled Martha, that repositions her as one of entertainment’s first true influencers. It’s pretty interesting and worth checking out.
We’re finally getting a look at Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars, featuring Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce, and Benedict Wong. The images were provided by Esquire from a new profile on the anticipated film, which has been the subject of some interesting buzz over the last few days.
Based on the Peter Heller novel, adapted by The Revenant writer Mark L. Smith, The Dog Stars is a story that Scott feels a close personal connection with.
“I was a war baby. So in a funny kind of way, that leaves a mark on your DNA,” Scott says. “When I was sitting under the stairs, while we were bombed at night by the Nazis, we were singing ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’ and hoping we never got a direct hit.”
Scott also says that what drew him to The Dog Stars is that it’s different from other post-apocalyptic films in that it’s about hope, not destruction…
“I think there’ve been rather too many apocalyptic movies,” Scott said. “And I think I started off with a pretty tough one doing ‘Blade Runner’ years ago. There was no end to the grimness of ‘Blade Runner.’ In this, what I’m so pleased that came off was the strong feeling of hope. ‘It’ll be okay.’ If you do the right thing, it calls to mind the expression: God helps those who help themselves.”
Interesting thoughts from the man behind Blade Runner and Alien, two of the all-time great, bleak sci-fi joints.
Here’s how the report describes The Dog Stars: A story set in the aftermath of global destruction. In this case, it’s not war but a lethal pandemic that has swept most of humanity off the globe. A few stragglers survive, including Elordi’s Hig, a pilot who has a single-engine Cessna he calls The Beast, a loyal blue heeler mutt named Jasper … and not much else. The dog and the plane are Hig’s version of singing “Old McDonald”—small comforts to keep him going when all seems lost.
So back to that buzz…it ain’t been good. Some reports are claiming that early test screenings have not gone well, with the common complaint being that it’s kinda tedious. Take these reports with a grain of salt, but as we all know, bad buzz usually impacts how a film does at the box office. And considering The Dog Stars cost somewhere around $100M, that could be a disaster. After a few delays, we can expect to see it in theaters on August 28th, so we won’t have to wait much longer. Presumably, a trailer will arrive soon.
There’s a strong chance that Weapons made you a fan of director Zach Cregger. For you, this is a pretty good time. At CinemaCon, Warner Bros. really doubled down on the filmmaker by announcing two new projects arriving in 2028.
First up, Cregger’s anticipated Weapons spinoff centered on Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys is set for September 8th 2028. Gladys will be co-written by Cregger and Zach Shields, but no director is currently attached.
Then there’s The Flood, the mysterious sci-fi horror project that Cregger will direct from his own screenplay. The film had been with Netflix before things fell apart due to Cregger wanting a full theatrical release, which Netflix wasn’t into at all. So it moved to New Line/Warner Bros., which will happily put it in as many theaters as possible given Creeger’s past successes. Steven Spielberg, a real fan of Cregger’s, will produce through Amblin Entertainment.
The Flood sounds kinda cool, too. It reportedly centers on a deep space exploration squad aboard a starship, who pick up a strange, recurring signal from a remote planet. Investigating the signal, they discover a bizarre alien artifact that warps time, reality, and the crew’s minds.
Next up for Cregger is Sony’s Resident Evil reboot arriving this September. [THR]
Sean Baker is headed to Warner Bros. with his next film, Ti Amo!, a follow-up to his Best Picture Oscar winner, Anora. However, this will be a different kind of rollout for the studio as it will be the first under its new specialty label, Clockwork.
Set to open in 2027, Ti Amo! was announced as part of the WB presentation at CinemaCon yesterday. The film will be written, directed, edited, and cast by Baker, who had previously described it as a love letter to the Italian sex comedies of the ’60s and ’70s.
This is a big deal, not only because Baker has set an extremely high bar with Anora’s success, but because Ti Amo! will be the movie that defines Clockwork. The label will be overseen by former NEON executive Christian Parkes.
Parkes said about the news, “Sean Baker is an artist who embodies everything we believe in at Clockwork, and TI AMO! will be another gift to Cinema. Plus, his poster game is on point.”
Can’t argue with that.
Ti Amo! sounds like it fits with Baker’s storytelling sensibilities. Along with Anora, his films such as Tangerine, Red Rocket, and The Florida Project highlight sex workers and other people on society’s fringes.
It’s official: Bradley Cooper will direct, write, produce, and star in Warner Bros.’ Ocean’s 11 prequel, after he was first rumored for it last month. This has been in the works since Cooper first eyed replacing Ryan Gosling in the co-starring role opposite Margot Robbie, and following the departure of previous director Lee Isaac Chung. The film is set to open on June 25th 2027.
This will be Cooper’s fourth time behind the camera following A Star is Born, Maestro, and last year’s Is This Thing On?Ocean’s is his first crack at directing a major franchise studio film, and I don’t expect it to be the last.
Carrie Solomon wrote the most recent screenplay draft, but Cooper will take over as writer. It’s expected that the film will leave the confines of Las Vegas and head to Europe for a 1960s caper involving the parents of Danny Ocean, the thieving parents of Danny Ocean, the character played by George Clooney in three Ocean’s movies. In fact, Robbie alluded to this plot when she appeared virtually during the WB presentation at CinemaCon…
“Before Danny Ocean ever stepped foot in Vegas, two masterminds taught him everything he knows: his parents. You’ll see them in all their prime in our new movie, pulling off an epic heist at the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix.”
A sequel, Ocean’s 14, is also in the works that will reunite Clooney, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, and Don Cheadle. The expectation is that others from the original crew of criminals will return. There’s no director attached, but isn’t it about time Clooney takes the wheel himself? He’s long overdue to direct an Ocean’s movie with his pals. [THR]
Remember having a massive binder full of shiny discs? That was how we kept our favorite movies and albums safe. We would spend hours organizing plastic boxes on living room shelves just to show off our collections. That whole concept is completely dead today. People now expect to find any movie or song in existence by typing a few letters into a search bar. We traded physical ownership for a giant digital rental system. This massive change flipped the entire media business completely upside down. Giant studios suddenly had to figure out how to grab your attention when you have literally millions of other things to click on. The competition is brutal because there are only twenty four hours in a day.
Emptying the Living Room Shelves
Think about what happened to the neighborhood video store. It completely vanished. Fast internet connections made it possible to pull giant video files through the air directly to your television set. You press a single button and the show starts playing instantly. Nobody wants to wait for a download progress bar to finish anymore. Companies realized they could charge a flat monthly fee and give people access to giant vaults of content. It is a brilliant business model because it provides reliable money every single month. Users get a bottomless pile of stuff to watch and the tech companies get rich. It wiped out the old way of selling individual copies of things.
This exact same thing happened to music. Record stores disappeared from local shopping malls. People traded their bulky compact disc collections for a monthly fee that unlocks nearly every song ever recorded in human history. You can build a custom playlist for a morning run or a late night drive in seconds. The convenience is completely unbeatable. You literally have the entire history of recorded music sitting right in your pocket.
When the Screen Knows What You Want
Having a billion options sounds great until you actually sit down on the couch. We all know that feeling of scrolling through menus for half an hour and then just giving up and going to sleep. Tech companies saw this problem and built smart code to fix it. They track every single thing you do on their applications. They know exactly when you pause a show or skip an opening song. The system takes all that personal data and guesses what will keep you looking at the screen.
It is basically invisible curation. You might think you are choosing what to watch but the software is gently pushing you toward specific titles. They even change the movie posters based on your favorite actors. This keeps people hooked for hours. The main goal of these platforms is simply to keep you hitting the next episode button until the sun comes up. They do not want you to stop and think about what to do next.
Holding the Controller
Movies and music are great but video games took over the whole block. Gaming makes more money than movie theaters and concert tours combined. People love being in control of the story. You are not just staring at a screen while a plot happens without you. You are making the actual choices that drive the narrative forward.
The studios making these games spend hundreds of millions to build virtual cities that look completely real. You can spend weeks exploring a fake planet and never see the same thing twice. The budgets are absolutely insane. And playing games is not just a quiet hobby anymore. Millions of fans buy tickets to fill giant sports arenas. They go there just to see top tier gamers compete for massive cash prizes. It is a giant spectacle that rivals traditional football or basketball broadcasts.
Arcades in Your Pocket
You definitely do not need an expensive computer to join the fun today. Almost everyone has a powerful phone sitting right in their pocket. Game makers saw this huge opportunity and started building stuff specifically for these small screens. You can pull your phone out while standing in line at the grocery store and clear a puzzle level in two minutes.
The screens are incredibly bright and the internal processors handle heavy graphics without breaking a sweat. Swiping and tapping feels really natural for most people. This brought highly addictive entertainment to millions of people who never cared about traditional gaming consoles. Developers know that mobile players want quick rewards so they build games that drop you straight into the action instantly.
The Power of Voices in Your Ear
Video usually gets all the attention but audio content made a massive comeback recently. Podcasts are completely taking over the morning commute. People love listening to long conversations about true crime or history or comedy while they drive to work or clean the kitchen. It is an incredibly intimate format. You have a voice talking directly into your ear for two straight hours.
This format allows for deep discussions that traditional radio would never touch. Anyone with a good idea can upload an audio file and potentially reach millions of daily listeners. Big platforms noticed this huge trend and started spending hundreds of millions to sign exclusive deals with popular podcasters. They know that audio is a great way to keep users locked into their ecosystem while driving or working.
Crossing Borders and Languages
The internet does not care about geography at all. A catchy song recorded in a small studio in Asia can become a giant hit in South America by Tuesday morning. But reaching a global audience means you have to understand local cultures deeply. Good platforms translate everything perfectly. They know that a player in Europe expects a different layout than someone in the United States.
For instance if someone is looking fortovábbi információ about new digital releases they want to read it in their own language. They want platforms that understand their specific local payment methods and cultural references. Building that deep local connection is the only way a global brand survives against smart local competitors. It shows the audience that the company actually cares about them.
Broadcasting from the Bedroom
You do not need a rich producer to make you famous anymore. Regular people are building massive audiences using nothing but a cheap camera and a decent microphone. They talk directly to their fans from their own bedrooms. They play games or just chat about their day.
Viewers love this raw and unfiltered content because it feels totally real. It feels like hanging out with a normal friend instead of a Hollywood celebrity. Fans gladly pay these creators directly through digital tips and monthly channel subscriptions. Traditional television networks are completely terrified of this new model because they cannot control it. The power has shifted directly into the hands of the individual creators.
Hanging Out Inside the Game
Entertainment is rarely a solo journey these days. Even if you are sitting alone in a dark room you are probably talking to three friends through a headset. Multiplayer games have turned into giant digital parks. People log in just to catch up on daily gossip while their digital characters run around a virtual map.
Streaming applications also let you watch a movie with friends who live hundreds of miles away. You can type jokes in a shared chat box while the movie plays on both of your screens. Companies love adding these social features to their products. If all your friends are paying for a specific service you are probably going to keep paying for it too. Social connections make it very hard to hit the cancel button.
Looking Past the Glass
The flat screens we stare at all day might eventually disappear entirely. Companies are pouring billions into virtual reality headsets. They want to drop you directly inside the action. Imagine putting on glasses and standing on a virtual football field while a live game happens around you. You could turn your head and see the crowd cheering in the stands behind you.
This stuff is not a silly joke anymore. Engineers are working late nights trying to make the hardware lighter and much cheaper for regular consumers. They want to completely erase the border between the digital world and the real physical world. In a few years watching a concert on a flat television might feel as outdated as listening to a cassette tape.
Paying by the Pixel
The old way of buying a game was totally simple. You paid cash and walked out of the store with a box. Now the base game is usually completely free to download. The companies make their huge profits by selling you tiny digital items inside the application itself.
Players gladly spend five dollars to buy a funny hat for their digital character or a new color for their virtual car. These small purchases add up to unbelievable profits over time. People also want the right to sell these digital items later to other players. This creates a weird little economy that lives entirely inside a video game. It turns digital pixels into actual valuable property.
The Never Ending Feed
The way we spend our lazy weekends is constantly shifting. We threw away our plastic discs and embraced the bottomless digital stream. We stopped just watching screens and started playing and interacting with them. Invisible code watches our every move to figure out exactly what we want to see tomorrow. Our phones make sure we are never disconnected from this giant web of fun no matter where we go.
The walls between different types of media are falling down fast. Everything is blending into one massive digital experience. Movies feel like games and games feel like movies. The companies that win this brutal battle for our attention will be the ones that actually listen to what regular people want. They need to make the digital world feel just a tiny bit more human.
The rumor mill has been buzzing lately with potential casting for Andy Serkis’ The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum. Most of it has surrounded the Aragorn character, as we’ve known for a while that Viggo Mortensen would not return. Leo Woodall has been at the top of the list to replace him, and it turns out those stories were only half accurate. Woodall is indeed joining the cast, but in a different role. Instead, it will be Belfast actor Jamie Dornan as the heroic Aragorn.
The news was reveled during the Warner Bros presentation at CinemaCon, where it was also confirmed that Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, and Lee Pace would be reprising their roles as Frodo, Gandalf, and Thranduil, respectively. As for Woodall, he’ll be playing Halvard, one of Aragorn’s ranger allies.
Also in the cast is Kate Winslet in the role of Marigol. Serkis not only directs but returns as the twisted Gollum who is being hunted by Aragorn before he can reveal the One Ring’s location to Sauron. The story is set between J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Hunt for Gollum opens in theaters on December 17th 2027.
Something I’ll never forget is the first time I experienced David Mackenzie’s gritty U.K. prison drama Starred Up and was introduced to Jack O’Connell through his powerful breakthrough performance. I got the same vibe with Cal McMau’s equally raw, visceral incarceration film Wasteman. Although I’m quite familiar with star David Jonsson, who I interviewed for Rye Lane and have been a fan of ever since, he shows an intensity that he’s never been asked to deliver before. When paired up alongside co-star Tom Blyth, the explosive chemistry between them is enough to elevate well-worn material about the brutality of life on the inside.
Most prison dramas focus on the most violent inmates, the guys nobody wants to fuck with. One of the things I loved about HBO’s series Oz is that it also showed the prisoners who are no threat to anybody and just want to survive long enough to get out. Wasteman is like a smaller version of that. Jonsson plays Taylor, a drug addict whose addiction only got worse behind bars. He cuts the hair of the most dangerous inmates, not just for drugs but for safety. You can by one look at him that Taylor is a man deeply in pain, racked with regret, and if he could tuck himself away and vanish he would do it in a heartbeat. But he also just wants to connect with the son, Adam, that he never got to see grow into a young man. However, the boy’s mother isn’t having it.
It’s almost like the gods are conspiring against Taylor, though. He soon learns of an opportunity for early release due to overcrowding. All he needs to do is keep his nose clean for a few days, sign a few forms, and he’s free to go home. Should be easy enough. Taylor keeps his head down for the most part. However, he’s suddenly “gifted” with a troublesome new cellmate, Dee (Blyth), and chaos follows in his wake. A transfer from another prison where he was a major handful, Dee arrives and immediately spots that Taylor is someone weak enough to be used and manipulated. Dee, a drug trafficker with plans to control the prison’s market, is loud, brash, aggressive, and always spoiling for a fight. It isn’t long before he makes all of the worst enemies, and threatens to pull Taylor down with him.
Wasteman explores the comprimises that prisoners sometimes have to make in order to survive. For Taylor, who is a pretty decent guy who made one bad mistake, it isn’t enough to have opioids take the edge off each day. Now, stuck in Dee’s chaotic orbit, he’s forced to be someone else, do things he would never do, because there’s simply no other way. While the friendship with Dee is toxic all the way, Taylor sorta becomes like a sidekick, sharing meals, moving drugs, and sharing details about his life on the outside. Information is strength, but inside of a prison it can also be a weakness. Dee is exactly the type to use what he knows about Taylor and his family for his own crooked ends.
Jonsson delivers a powerful, soulful performance, carrying a lifetime of remorse in his every action. Blyth is the polar opposite. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes actor is a force of nature, a whirlwind of toxic machismo and violence. Jonsson and Blyth click magnificently when sharing the screen, and both actors have bright futures ahead of them.
McMau and DP Lorenzo Levrini frequently shift gears visually, capturing the shadowy stillness of isolation and loneliness during Taylor’s quiet moments. But just as often it cuts quickly to shaky vertical camera phone footage of extreme prison violence, making the point that, yes, prison is Hell. Wasteman doesn’t attempt a larger idea than that, its ambitions as confining as the concrete walls holding so many in lockup. The biggest takeaway is that we are fortunate to be on the groundfloor of Jonsson’s career, and as long as he doesn’t limit himself, the sky is the limit.
