My screening series Amnesiascope will have its next event on Tuesday, May 28 at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. It was only a matter of time until I showed a film by Jean-Luc Godard, and if it’s so early into the programming cycle we can consider the work itself––to my mind his greatest feature (whatever its status as a rare object) and one that well embodies the creative spirit of the theater space that’s given Amnesiascope a home. This will mark its first New York screening since 2017.
Without revealing the film’s title I’ll say it’s a summit of Godard’s ’80s corpus, yet another self-reflecting vision of a director’s rise and fall, and makes for an essential study of Jean-Pierre Léaud as auteurism embodied. Were that, somehow, not enough, playwright (and Center co-founder) Matthew Gasda will once again mix cocktails that come far...
Without revealing the film’s title I’ll say it’s a summit of Godard’s ’80s corpus, yet another self-reflecting vision of a director’s rise and fall, and makes for an essential study of Jean-Pierre Léaud as auteurism embodied. Were that, somehow, not enough, playwright (and Center co-founder) Matthew Gasda will once again mix cocktails that come far...
- 5/14/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Winona Oak provides an unflinching look at the grief that she’s experienced since the death of her mother on her new EP Void.
Out Friday (May 3), the project is the latest from the Swedish songstress, who fans will recognize from her duet “Hope” with The Chainsmokers.
On it, her wistful voice and evocative lyrics are at their most heart-wrenching as she processes the loss of one of the closest people in her life to cancer.
For instance, focus track “Who Would I Be” is a soaring anthem that finds her dreaming of a chance to leave her nightmares behind in favor of a happier story. Poignant and relatable, it’s quality music with the most heart.
“I am really proud of this EP. It’s been the worst year of my life. So I can’t believe I put it all together somehow. I don’t understand how I did it sometimes,...
Out Friday (May 3), the project is the latest from the Swedish songstress, who fans will recognize from her duet “Hope” with The Chainsmokers.
On it, her wistful voice and evocative lyrics are at their most heart-wrenching as she processes the loss of one of the closest people in her life to cancer.
For instance, focus track “Who Would I Be” is a soaring anthem that finds her dreaming of a chance to leave her nightmares behind in favor of a happier story. Poignant and relatable, it’s quality music with the most heart.
“I am really proud of this EP. It’s been the worst year of my life. So I can’t believe I put it all together somehow. I don’t understand how I did it sometimes,...
- 5/4/2024
- by Just Jared
- Just Jared
Amanda Shires played the first of two scheduled concerts opening for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit on Thursday night, more than three months after news broke in February that the beloved Americana couple were divorcing. According to those in attendance at Mission Ballroom in Denver and social media posts, including several shared from her Instagram account, Shires delivered a stunning performance, storming headlong into any awkwardness that appearing on a bill with Isbell — announced back in October — might suggest.
Even Isbell said so, thanking Shires onstage and adding, “I’ve...
Even Isbell said so, thanking Shires onstage and adding, “I’ve...
- 5/3/2024
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
David Gilmour is planning to promote his upcoming solo album, Luck and Strange, with a rare tour. Just don’t show up expecting to hear Pink Floyd hits like “Wish You Were Here,” “Comfortably Numb,” or “Money.” In a new interview with Uncut, Gilmour said he has an “unwillingness to revisit the Pink Floyd of the Seventies” and would rather focus the set around his new album and other periods of Floyd’s history.
“[Other decades] might be better represented,” he said. “I mean, at least one from the Sixties. The one...
“[Other decades] might be better represented,” he said. “I mean, at least one from the Sixties. The one...
- 5/2/2024
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Country star Eric Church has responded to criticism he received for putting on an unconventional, polarizing headlining set at the Stagecoach Music Festival.
Taking the festival’s main stage for its closing slot on Friday night, Church transformed Stagecoach into a literal church of sorts, projecting dramatic stained-glass art behind him and enlisting a gospel choir to fill-out the sound. Though his performance began later than scheduled, it opened with quite a statement: a five-minute organ intro followed by a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (but don’t tell St. Vincent that).
Get Eric Church Tickets Here
From there, Church’s setlist featured more covers — some traditional and some quite unexpected. He played “This Little Light of Mine,” and other standards, but also reimagined songs like Tupac Shakur’s “California Love” and Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.” Notably missing, though, were many of Church’s own songs — he...
Taking the festival’s main stage for its closing slot on Friday night, Church transformed Stagecoach into a literal church of sorts, projecting dramatic stained-glass art behind him and enlisting a gospel choir to fill-out the sound. Though his performance began later than scheduled, it opened with quite a statement: a five-minute organ intro followed by a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (but don’t tell St. Vincent that).
Get Eric Church Tickets Here
From there, Church’s setlist featured more covers — some traditional and some quite unexpected. He played “This Little Light of Mine,” and other standards, but also reimagined songs like Tupac Shakur’s “California Love” and Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.” Notably missing, though, were many of Church’s own songs — he...
- 4/28/2024
- by Jo Vito
- Consequence - Music
Is there any current director who is more controversial than Zack Snyder? It’s wild how divisive a figure he is, with his fans nearly cult-like in their devotion, while his detractors are just as fervent. Here at JoBlo, we’ve always been ardent supporters, even if we haven’t unquestioningly praised all of his films. Thus, we thought it would be interesting to do an all-around ranking of his films (although we’ve left the animated Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole off the list). So, without further ado, here’s our ranking from worst to best.
Sucker Punch:
I’ll admit to not knowing precisely what Snyder was trying to pull off when I saw this movie in 2011. It remains the most obscure of his live-action films. It is a tough nut to crack, being that it’s a fantastical, hyper-surrealistic fantasy centred around a woman...
Sucker Punch:
I’ll admit to not knowing precisely what Snyder was trying to pull off when I saw this movie in 2011. It remains the most obscure of his live-action films. It is a tough nut to crack, being that it’s a fantastical, hyper-surrealistic fantasy centred around a woman...
- 4/28/2024
- by Chris Bumbray
- JoBlo.com
Stagecoach is known for its surprises and, on Friday night, Eric Church delivered one of the most unexpected sets in the California country music festival’s history. The question facing fans is, was it a good surprise or a bad one?
Church hadn’t headlined Stagecoach since 2016 and is currently in the midst of a 19-show residency at his Nashville bar Chief’s that finds him getting up-close and candid with fans and testing out new songs. When he appeared on the Mane Stage at 9:45 p.m. to the...
Church hadn’t headlined Stagecoach since 2016 and is currently in the midst of a 19-show residency at his Nashville bar Chief’s that finds him getting up-close and candid with fans and testing out new songs. When he appeared on the Mane Stage at 9:45 p.m. to the...
- 4/27/2024
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
St. Vincent’s seventh studio album, All Born Screaming, has arrived.
Described by St. Vincent’s Annie Clark as a “post-plague pop” album about “heaven and hell — the metaphorical kinds,” All Born Screaming was first announced this past February, and was preceded by its singles, “Broken Man,” “Flea,” and “Big Time Nothing.”
Get St. Vincent Tickets Here
The album’s full tracklist spans 10 songs, and includes contributions from exciting collaborators like Dave Grohl, Josh Freese, Cate Le Bon (who features on the title track), and more.
One poignant moment is the song “Sweetest Fruit,” which was partially inspired by the legacy and death of Sophie, who Clark “never met,” but was “an admirer from afar,” according to a recent interview. Stream All Born Screaming in its entirety below.
Meanwhile, Clark is gearing up for her 2024 tour, which kicks off in May and will bring her to cities like San Francisco,...
Described by St. Vincent’s Annie Clark as a “post-plague pop” album about “heaven and hell — the metaphorical kinds,” All Born Screaming was first announced this past February, and was preceded by its singles, “Broken Man,” “Flea,” and “Big Time Nothing.”
Get St. Vincent Tickets Here
The album’s full tracklist spans 10 songs, and includes contributions from exciting collaborators like Dave Grohl, Josh Freese, Cate Le Bon (who features on the title track), and more.
One poignant moment is the song “Sweetest Fruit,” which was partially inspired by the legacy and death of Sophie, who Clark “never met,” but was “an admirer from afar,” according to a recent interview. Stream All Born Screaming in its entirety below.
Meanwhile, Clark is gearing up for her 2024 tour, which kicks off in May and will bring her to cities like San Francisco,...
- 4/26/2024
- by Jo Vito
- Consequence - Music
Madonna is the Queen of Pop, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to respect her as an artist. The writer behind “Like a Prayer” and other Madonna hits revealed what he thought of her as a person and why some singers are labeled “real artists.” He also discussed his issues with the modern music industry.
Madonna’s songwriter revealed his opinion on alleged ‘real artists’
Patrick Leonard is a songwriter who is primarily known for co-writing hits with the Queen of Pop. Leonard’s collaborations with Madonna include “La Isla Bonita,” “Like a Prayer,” “Live to Tell,” “Frozen,” and “Cherish.” You’ll be hard-pressed to find a 1980s nostalgia station that doesn’t play some of those songs. During a 2017 interview with Boys Culture, Leonard discussed his relationship with the Material Girl. “There’s always been mutual respect, and I think that it isn’t often where...
Madonna’s songwriter revealed his opinion on alleged ‘real artists’
Patrick Leonard is a songwriter who is primarily known for co-writing hits with the Queen of Pop. Leonard’s collaborations with Madonna include “La Isla Bonita,” “Like a Prayer,” “Live to Tell,” “Frozen,” and “Cherish.” You’ll be hard-pressed to find a 1980s nostalgia station that doesn’t play some of those songs. During a 2017 interview with Boys Culture, Leonard discussed his relationship with the Material Girl. “There’s always been mutual respect, and I think that it isn’t often where...
- 4/25/2024
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Madonna released more hits than just about anyone but not all of them are vocally challenging. Despite this, her co-writer said one of her hits proves the Material Girl has the best singing voice ever. He also revealed what he thinks of people who don’t see her as a real artist.
Madonna’s songwriter said 1 hit proved she could singer better than these rock stars
Though he is not a household name, Patrick Leonard is one of the most important songwriters in pop history. He worked with Madonna on many of her best songs from the 1980s and 1990s, including “Like a Prayer,” “La Isla Bonita,” “Live to Tell,” “Cherish,” and “Frozen.” During a 2017 interview with Boy Culture, the songwriter said he was upset by critics who felt Madonna was not a real artist, whatever that means.
“There’s people with a more controlled voice — the word ‘better’ is not fair,...
Madonna’s songwriter said 1 hit proved she could singer better than these rock stars
Though he is not a household name, Patrick Leonard is one of the most important songwriters in pop history. He worked with Madonna on many of her best songs from the 1980s and 1990s, including “Like a Prayer,” “La Isla Bonita,” “Live to Tell,” “Cherish,” and “Frozen.” During a 2017 interview with Boy Culture, the songwriter said he was upset by critics who felt Madonna was not a real artist, whatever that means.
“There’s people with a more controlled voice — the word ‘better’ is not fair,...
- 4/24/2024
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Fat White Family are arguably best known for their on-stage nudity and confrontational use of Nazi imagery in their work. Their 2019 album Serfs Up!, however, found the South London provocateurs finally putting as much effort into their music as they have their public antics. On Forgiveness Is Yours, the band continues to hone their songwriting and musicianship, with genre pastiches ranging from psychedelic folk (“John Lennon”), orchestral pop (“Religion for One”), conga-driven disco (“Bullet of Dignity”), and danceable post-punk (“Polygamy Is Only for the Chief”). Think Serge Gainsbourg and Leonard Cohen meets Pulp.
Singer Lias Saoudi employs a trendy sprechgesang on tracks like “The Archivist” and “Today You Became a Man.” Impressively, he spends the latter song reading paragraphs’ worth of text, compellingly describing his older brother’s circumcision (without anesthesia) at the age of five, accompanied by skittering percussion and gurgling electronics. Saoudi addresses his Algerian heritage with a typically barbed touch,...
Singer Lias Saoudi employs a trendy sprechgesang on tracks like “The Archivist” and “Today You Became a Man.” Impressively, he spends the latter song reading paragraphs’ worth of text, compellingly describing his older brother’s circumcision (without anesthesia) at the age of five, accompanied by skittering percussion and gurgling electronics. Saoudi addresses his Algerian heritage with a typically barbed touch,...
- 4/22/2024
- by Steve Erickson
- Slant Magazine
U.K. distribution powerhouse Dcd Rights is announcing strong pre-sales for its musical legend laden slate at MipTV.
The remastered release of “David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars” in stunning 4K leads the pack with a pre-sale to Nhk Japan already in place. Premiering to market at MipTV is “Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision.” The doc lifts the lid on the creation of the legendary studio, a former nightclub which had played host to Chuck Berry and Bb King before its reincarnation into the recording home of the heir apparent to the guitar god throne. Pre-sold to Sky in the U.K., it will air on Sky Arts later in 2024., James Anderson, sales manager at Dcd Rights, told Variety.
Recent years have seen the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen all given the high end doc treatment, nostalgia seeming a powerful draw. Dcd Rights’ slate...
The remastered release of “David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars” in stunning 4K leads the pack with a pre-sale to Nhk Japan already in place. Premiering to market at MipTV is “Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision.” The doc lifts the lid on the creation of the legendary studio, a former nightclub which had played host to Chuck Berry and Bb King before its reincarnation into the recording home of the heir apparent to the guitar god throne. Pre-sold to Sky in the U.K., it will air on Sky Arts later in 2024., James Anderson, sales manager at Dcd Rights, told Variety.
Recent years have seen the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen all given the high end doc treatment, nostalgia seeming a powerful draw. Dcd Rights’ slate...
- 4/8/2024
- by Callum McLennan
- Variety Film + TV
The Beatles were often seen as some of classic rock’s greatest rebels — but what were they rebelling against? Different fans will give different answers, but one of the other rock stars from the 1960s has his own feelings on the matter. He said that Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen had the same mindset as the Fab Four.
Donovan said The Beatles and other rock stars felt ‘a mass generational angst’
Donovan is a psychedelic folk singer who is known for hits such as “Mellow Yellow,” “There Is a Mountain,” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” He also crossed paths with The Beatles many times. Donovan famously influenced much of the music of The White Album.
During a 2018 interview with Goldmine, Donovan discussed the social issues that cast a shadow over the 1960s counterculture. “The rivers were being poisoned as was the air,” he said. “Two world wars and a depression were produced.
Donovan said The Beatles and other rock stars felt ‘a mass generational angst’
Donovan is a psychedelic folk singer who is known for hits such as “Mellow Yellow,” “There Is a Mountain,” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man.” He also crossed paths with The Beatles many times. Donovan famously influenced much of the music of The White Album.
During a 2018 interview with Goldmine, Donovan discussed the social issues that cast a shadow over the 1960s counterculture. “The rivers were being poisoned as was the air,” he said. “Two world wars and a depression were produced.
- 4/7/2024
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
St. Vincent has some strong opinions on those dramatic covers of “Hallelujah” you could often hear on competition shows like American Idol, calling them “the worst thing in the world.”
“Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ is one of the best songs ever written, period,” the singer told BBC Radio 2 in a recent interview. “It’s an absolute masterpiece, it took them however many years to write. The song itself is about the complication that it is to be alive, and the agony and the ecstasy and all of the inherent conflict therein.
“Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ is one of the best songs ever written, period,” the singer told BBC Radio 2 in a recent interview. “It’s an absolute masterpiece, it took them however many years to write. The song itself is about the complication that it is to be alive, and the agony and the ecstasy and all of the inherent conflict therein.
- 4/5/2024
- by Ethan Millman
- Rollingstone.com
St. Vincent is tired of singers covering Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” while stripping away its original meaning. In a recent interview with BBC Radio, she called such covers “the worst thing in the world.”
Speaking to host Jo Whiley, the artist born Annie Clark praised “Hallelujah” as an “absolute masterpiece” and referenced how it took Cohen “many years to write” the song.
Get St. Vincent Tickets Here
“[It’s] about the complication that it is to be alive — and the agony and the ecstasy and everything and all of the inherent conflict therein,” she continued, before blasting awful covers of “Hallelujah” on televised singing competitions.
“Then you know how for a period of time it became a song that people would, like, cover on American Idol? People would sing it on American Idol and just be like [imitates vocal fry tone], ‘Haaalelujah! Halleluuuujah!’ And it’s just the worst thing in the world. Like, it’s...
Speaking to host Jo Whiley, the artist born Annie Clark praised “Hallelujah” as an “absolute masterpiece” and referenced how it took Cohen “many years to write” the song.
Get St. Vincent Tickets Here
“[It’s] about the complication that it is to be alive — and the agony and the ecstasy and everything and all of the inherent conflict therein,” she continued, before blasting awful covers of “Hallelujah” on televised singing competitions.
“Then you know how for a period of time it became a song that people would, like, cover on American Idol? People would sing it on American Idol and just be like [imitates vocal fry tone], ‘Haaalelujah! Halleluuuujah!’ And it’s just the worst thing in the world. Like, it’s...
- 4/5/2024
- by Eddie Fu
- Consequence - Music
In summer 2012, singer Jeff Gutt walked onto The X Factor audition stage and stunned judges Britney Spears, Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato, and L.A. Reid with a remarkable rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that brought the entire audience to their feet. And in a scene straight out of a movie, a loud thunderclap from a nearby storm echoed throughout the theater as he soaked in the adulation. “I’ve heard that song a lot,” said Cowell. “I’ve sat in this chair a long time. It was one of the...
- 4/3/2024
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
John Lennon was both the dreamer who wrote “Imagine” and someone with a dark side. One of his fellow 1960s rock stars discussed John’s “positively vitriolic” behavior at length. He still defended the former Beatle.
A rock star said John Lennon had a ‘dark side’ but Liverpool did too
Donovan is a rock star who evolved from Scotland’s Bob Dylan into a psychedelic mystic in a very short period of time. Donovan crossed paths with The Beatles several times during the 1960s. The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits says he helped write The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” which makes sense because many of Donovan’s songs feel like oddball nursery rhymes. In a way, Paul McCartney returned the favor by contributing vocals to Donovan’s own yellow-themed hit “Mellow Yellow.”
For some time, John has had a dual public image as both a troubled man and a saintly peace activist.
A rock star said John Lennon had a ‘dark side’ but Liverpool did too
Donovan is a rock star who evolved from Scotland’s Bob Dylan into a psychedelic mystic in a very short period of time. Donovan crossed paths with The Beatles several times during the 1960s. The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits says he helped write The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” which makes sense because many of Donovan’s songs feel like oddball nursery rhymes. In a way, Paul McCartney returned the favor by contributing vocals to Donovan’s own yellow-themed hit “Mellow Yellow.”
For some time, John has had a dual public image as both a troubled man and a saintly peace activist.
- 4/3/2024
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways tour touched down Monday night at the Sanger Theatre in New Orleans. The venue is just a little under six miles from Lake Pontchartrain, which is probably why Dylan decided to break out the 1947 Hank Williams classic “On the Banks of the Old Pontchartrain” for the first time in his career. It was a tender rendition that he delivered in a remarkably clear voice.
Dylan became a fan of Hank Williams at a very young age. “I remember hearing’ Hank Williams one or...
Dylan became a fan of Hank Williams at a very young age. “I remember hearing’ Hank Williams one or...
- 4/2/2024
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: A Very Sapphic Second Coming
Given the choice to watch Jesus fight a pack of lesbian vampires or an honest-to-God homophobe, I will almost always choose the lesbian vampires. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see an intolerant bigot get roundhouse-kicked by the Prince of Peace; in fact, that image is particularly tempting ahead of Easter weekend during an election year.
But as an ex-Catholic school girl born of the “Twilight” generation, my unquenchable thirst for horny vampires supersedes my taste for virtue signaling most of the time.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.
The Pitch: A Very Sapphic Second Coming
Given the choice to watch Jesus fight a pack of lesbian vampires or an honest-to-God homophobe, I will almost always choose the lesbian vampires. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see an intolerant bigot get roundhouse-kicked by the Prince of Peace; in fact, that image is particularly tempting ahead of Easter weekend during an election year.
But as an ex-Catholic school girl born of the “Twilight” generation, my unquenchable thirst for horny vampires supersedes my taste for virtue signaling most of the time.
- 3/30/2024
- by Alison Foreman and Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Annette Bening’s first major TV series role has won the five-time Oscar nominee the Best Actress prize at this year’s Series Mania.
Bening was awarded in the past few minutes at the prestigious Lille event for her leading role in Peacock series Apples Never Fall, an adaptation of a novel by Big Little Lies scribe Liane Moriarty.
The coveted grand prize was given to French-Hungarian chess drama Rematch about the historic 1997 chess battle between Garry Kasparov and an Ibm computer. It beat off competition from the likes of Apples Never Fall, MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Leonard Cohen show So Long, Marianne.
Apples Never Fall stars Bening as Joy Delaney, a matriarch former tennis coach married to the irritable Stan (Neill), who suddenly goes missing, leaving her four children to piece together everything they thought they knew about their parents.
Speaking to Deadline prior to Series Mania, showrunner...
Bening was awarded in the past few minutes at the prestigious Lille event for her leading role in Peacock series Apples Never Fall, an adaptation of a novel by Big Little Lies scribe Liane Moriarty.
The coveted grand prize was given to French-Hungarian chess drama Rematch about the historic 1997 chess battle between Garry Kasparov and an Ibm computer. It beat off competition from the likes of Apples Never Fall, MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Leonard Cohen show So Long, Marianne.
Apples Never Fall stars Bening as Joy Delaney, a matriarch former tennis coach married to the irritable Stan (Neill), who suddenly goes missing, leaving her four children to piece together everything they thought they knew about their parents.
Speaking to Deadline prior to Series Mania, showrunner...
- 3/22/2024
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
In the first few minutes of his first Zoom casting call with actor Alex Wolff, Oystein Karlsen knew he had found his Leonard Cohen.
“He came on the screen like this,” the Norwegian director and screenwriter puts his hand over his face, with one eye poking out. “He said: ‘Sorry, I’m so hung over. I know I’m not going to get the role. I feel horrible.’ I thought: That’s Leonard!”
Karlsen already had his eye on Wolff to play the famously melancholic Canadian singer-songwriter in his new TV miniseries about Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, his great love, muse and the woman who inspired the song that gives the series its title: So Long, Marianne.
Alex Wolff as Leonard Cohen and Thea Sofie Loch Ness as Marianne Ihlen in So Long, Marianne.
“I wanted a professional musician and singer because I wanted our Leonard to really sing, to really play Cohen’s music,...
“He came on the screen like this,” the Norwegian director and screenwriter puts his hand over his face, with one eye poking out. “He said: ‘Sorry, I’m so hung over. I know I’m not going to get the role. I feel horrible.’ I thought: That’s Leonard!”
Karlsen already had his eye on Wolff to play the famously melancholic Canadian singer-songwriter in his new TV miniseries about Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, his great love, muse and the woman who inspired the song that gives the series its title: So Long, Marianne.
Alex Wolff as Leonard Cohen and Thea Sofie Loch Ness as Marianne Ihlen in So Long, Marianne.
“I wanted a professional musician and singer because I wanted our Leonard to really sing, to really play Cohen’s music,...
- 3/22/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Vampire Weekend have played around with a slightly “punky,” slightly “jammy”side project in their free time, band members Ezra Koenig, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio told the New York Times.
According to Tomson, the extra-curriculars began as a way to blow off steam during the pandemic. “The world had stopped working and a lot of what we normally do was just not being done,” Tomson recalled. “There was something about just playing with no expectation — to just play with my two very close friends without an agenda.”
Get Vampire Weekend Tickets Here
Baio added, “It’s very rare for people in a band of our size to be alone together. No engineer, no tour manager, nothing like that. It felt like being at the outset of the band again. And we did that for three years and change, whenever we were all in town.”
And Koenig has even embellished...
According to Tomson, the extra-curriculars began as a way to blow off steam during the pandemic. “The world had stopped working and a lot of what we normally do was just not being done,” Tomson recalled. “There was something about just playing with no expectation — to just play with my two very close friends without an agenda.”
Get Vampire Weekend Tickets Here
Baio added, “It’s very rare for people in a band of our size to be alone together. No engineer, no tour manager, nothing like that. It felt like being at the outset of the band again. And we did that for three years and change, whenever we were all in town.”
And Koenig has even embellished...
- 3/21/2024
- by Wren Graves
- Consequence - Music
Exclusive Narcos creator Chris Brancato is developing a Peaky Blinders-style series about Irish gangs in New York.
Brancato has revealed the project in the past few minutes at Series Mania, and it is under working title The Westies. Deadline understands the project is in early development for MGM+.
The showrunner, whose MGM+ show Hotel Cocaine is in competition in Lille, said he is working on the script and the series will be about “fearsome Irish gangs” with a starting point of the late 1970s.
Brancato talked the Series Mania crowd through his upcoming projects and said he is also mulling a couple of shows similar to Beverly Hills, 90210. He wrote on the series earlier in his career.
He is also sketching out a second season of Hotel Cocaine, a Casablance-esque show about a Cuban exile, and general manager of a hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene...
Brancato has revealed the project in the past few minutes at Series Mania, and it is under working title The Westies. Deadline understands the project is in early development for MGM+.
The showrunner, whose MGM+ show Hotel Cocaine is in competition in Lille, said he is working on the script and the series will be about “fearsome Irish gangs” with a starting point of the late 1970s.
Brancato talked the Series Mania crowd through his upcoming projects and said he is also mulling a couple of shows similar to Beverly Hills, 90210. He wrote on the series earlier in his career.
He is also sketching out a second season of Hotel Cocaine, a Casablance-esque show about a Cuban exile, and general manager of a hotel, the glamorous epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene...
- 3/20/2024
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
In the early 1970s, Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan wrote and recorded songs for the English version of Italian director Franco Zeffirelli’s film “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” about the early years of St. Francis of Assisi, that evoked the “flower power” hippie movement and developed a cult following.
Half a century later, Donovan traveled to Italy last week to watch a freshly restored version of the film in two celebratory events. The first was an intimate private screening held in Rome’s Quirinale Palace for Italian President Sergio Mattarella and a select group of officials, and the next was in Florence, the late Zeffirelli’s birthplace, where the Zeffirelli Foundation held a free screening open to the public attended by a copious contingent of Franciscan monks.
Donovan, who was born in Glasgow, emerged on the U.K. folk scene in 1965. He broke out the following year with the album “Sunshine Superman,...
Half a century later, Donovan traveled to Italy last week to watch a freshly restored version of the film in two celebratory events. The first was an intimate private screening held in Rome’s Quirinale Palace for Italian President Sergio Mattarella and a select group of officials, and the next was in Florence, the late Zeffirelli’s birthplace, where the Zeffirelli Foundation held a free screening open to the public attended by a copious contingent of Franciscan monks.
Donovan, who was born in Glasgow, emerged on the U.K. folk scene in 1965. He broke out the following year with the album “Sunshine Superman,...
- 3/19/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Creatives behind sperm donor series All & Eva have said the show represents a new wave of auteur-driven Scandi drama.
The era of The Killing and The Bridge dominating Scandi fare at events such as Series Mania is long gone, director Johanna Runevad and producer Sofie Palage told Deadline in the week leading up to All & Eva’s international competition screening at the Lille confab.
The pair pointed to hit Swedish dramedies that have aired of late including Viaplay’s Love Me and HBO Max’s Lust.
“Ten years ago, the only thing Sweden exported was crime shows and Nordic noir,” said Palage. “Now, the international audience is more likely to watch Swedish shows on other topics. You can do any genre and people will watch. Although I still love crime, it’s great that we don’t only have to do crime.”
For Runevad, this development has opened up a...
The era of The Killing and The Bridge dominating Scandi fare at events such as Series Mania is long gone, director Johanna Runevad and producer Sofie Palage told Deadline in the week leading up to All & Eva’s international competition screening at the Lille confab.
The pair pointed to hit Swedish dramedies that have aired of late including Viaplay’s Love Me and HBO Max’s Lust.
“Ten years ago, the only thing Sweden exported was crime shows and Nordic noir,” said Palage. “Now, the international audience is more likely to watch Swedish shows on other topics. You can do any genre and people will watch. Although I still love crime, it’s great that we don’t only have to do crime.”
For Runevad, this development has opened up a...
- 3/19/2024
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
“’I sacrificed my love on the altars of fame,’ Leonard Cohen said in the ‘70s,” “So Long, Marianne” showrunner Øystein Karlsen notes. Cohen was referring of course to his ‘60s decade-long relationship with Norway’s Marianne Ilhen, which shaped him for life.
One of the highest-profile and most anticipated world premieres in Series Mania main competition, “So Long, Marianne” is a coming of age love story which, in a quietly innovative, genre-breaking turn, asks whether the place in the world chosen by one character, Leonard Cohen, was always for his good.
Sold by Cineflix Rights as an eight-part series, “So Long, Marianne” begins in 1959 focusing on Norway’s Marianne Ilhen and Cohen’s love idyll on Hydra, a Greek island, which Ilhen reaches as the partner of budding Norwegian novelist Axel Jensen, and Cohen looking to find a place where, he says in Episode 1, he “can take responsibility for my own identity.
One of the highest-profile and most anticipated world premieres in Series Mania main competition, “So Long, Marianne” is a coming of age love story which, in a quietly innovative, genre-breaking turn, asks whether the place in the world chosen by one character, Leonard Cohen, was always for his good.
Sold by Cineflix Rights as an eight-part series, “So Long, Marianne” begins in 1959 focusing on Norway’s Marianne Ilhen and Cohen’s love idyll on Hydra, a Greek island, which Ilhen reaches as the partner of budding Norwegian novelist Axel Jensen, and Cohen looking to find a place where, he says in Episode 1, he “can take responsibility for my own identity.
- 3/19/2024
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Leonard Cohen had a huge impact on generations of fans, and So Long, Marianne star Alex Wolff is one of them.
Speaking exclusively to Deadline ahead of So Long‘s worldwide premiere at Series Mania this week, Oppenheimer and Hereditary actor Wolff paid tribute to the late singer-songwriter. “His contribution to my life has been so substantial that whatever words I have don’t sum up what he’s meant to my working life and to me personally,” he said.
Wolff, who is himself a musician and recording artist, plays Cohen in So Long, Marianne, which is one of the buzziest international series at Series Mania, which is Europe’s largest scripted television festival. The Nrk and Crave series is the International Competition category against the likes of Peacock’s Apples Never Fall and the ABC’s House of Gods.
In the eight-part series, Wolff appears opposite Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
Speaking exclusively to Deadline ahead of So Long‘s worldwide premiere at Series Mania this week, Oppenheimer and Hereditary actor Wolff paid tribute to the late singer-songwriter. “His contribution to my life has been so substantial that whatever words I have don’t sum up what he’s meant to my working life and to me personally,” he said.
Wolff, who is himself a musician and recording artist, plays Cohen in So Long, Marianne, which is one of the buzziest international series at Series Mania, which is Europe’s largest scripted television festival. The Nrk and Crave series is the International Competition category against the likes of Peacock’s Apples Never Fall and the ABC’s House of Gods.
In the eight-part series, Wolff appears opposite Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
- 3/19/2024
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Netflix is teaming up with Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, whose Harry Hole crime novels have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and, thanks to an awkward English-language adaptation of Nesbo’s The Snowman in 2017, launched endless online memes.
On Monday Netflix unveiled a new Nordic noir series, Harry Hole (working title), based on Nesbo’s novel The Devil’s Star, the fifth in his Harry Hole series about the obsessive, brilliant but introverted titular homicide detective.
Working Title will produce the Norwegian series, with Øystein Karlsen — whose new Leonard Cohen-inspired drama So Long Marianne premieres at the SeriesMania this week — attached to direct. Working Title produced the English-language version of Nesbo’s The Snowman in 2017. Directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and starring Michael Fassbender as Harry Hole, the movie is now best remembered for the many online parodies of its poster, which featured...
On Monday Netflix unveiled a new Nordic noir series, Harry Hole (working title), based on Nesbo’s novel The Devil’s Star, the fifth in his Harry Hole series about the obsessive, brilliant but introverted titular homicide detective.
Working Title will produce the Norwegian series, with Øystein Karlsen — whose new Leonard Cohen-inspired drama So Long Marianne premieres at the SeriesMania this week — attached to direct. Working Title produced the English-language version of Nesbo’s The Snowman in 2017. Directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) and starring Michael Fassbender as Harry Hole, the movie is now best remembered for the many online parodies of its poster, which featured...
- 3/18/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
On Wednesday night, Peso Pluma headlined a night of music that careened from música mexicana to urbano to Norteño-inflected folk at Rolling Stone’s Future of Music showcase, causing lines around the block. The next evening, the showcase pivoted in another, no less potent, direction, mixing up hip-hop with innovative sounds from Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, and more.
Preacher, a.k.a. Keite Young, came out and showed he wasn’t messing around. Flanked by a five-piece band and 10-member choir, the singer launched right into a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.
Preacher, a.k.a. Keite Young, came out and showed he wasn’t messing around. Flanked by a five-piece band and 10-member choir, the singer launched right into a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.
- 3/15/2024
- by Rolling Stone
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: Melanie Marnich is a huge fan of Big Little Lies scribe Liane Moriarty’s work, but when showrunning an adaptation of Moriarty’s Apples Never Fall, Marnich blocked the HBO hit from her consciousness almost entirely.
Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, which stars 2024 Oscar-nominee Annette Bening, launches tomorrow and is in international competition at next week’s Series Mania, was made with a Big Little Lies-free lens, Marnich explained to Deadline.
“I admire Big Little Lies and think it’s brilliant but I had to literally put it out my mind,” she said in the days leading up to the Lille market. “I knew I had to quite quickly ignore all [Moriarty’s past work] and ask what this book wants to be and what the best way is to honor it. How do I ignore all that came before to find the best voice and vision for this translation?”
Exec produced...
Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, which stars 2024 Oscar-nominee Annette Bening, launches tomorrow and is in international competition at next week’s Series Mania, was made with a Big Little Lies-free lens, Marnich explained to Deadline.
“I admire Big Little Lies and think it’s brilliant but I had to literally put it out my mind,” she said in the days leading up to the Lille market. “I knew I had to quite quickly ignore all [Moriarty’s past work] and ask what this book wants to be and what the best way is to honor it. How do I ignore all that came before to find the best voice and vision for this translation?”
Exec produced...
- 3/13/2024
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Sinead O’Connor‘s estate has called for the removal of the late singer’s music from Donald Trump’s political campaign rallies. During recent stops in Maryland and North Carolina in the last week, her defining single “Nothing Compares 2 U” was played during events that O’Connor herself would have adamantly denounced herself.
“It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil,’” O’Connor’s...
“It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil,’” O’Connor’s...
- 3/4/2024
- by Larisha Paul
- Rollingstone.com
London, March 4 (Ians) The estate of the late Irish singer-songwriter-social activist Sinead O’Connor has denounced the Republican Party’s presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s use of her performance of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ at his recent campaign rallies, reports ‘Variety’.
The single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was a part of her best-selling 1990 album ‘I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got’, which sold seven million copies worldwide. It was voted the No. 1 world single of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.
In a statement to ‘Variety’, O’Connor’s estate and label Chrysalis Records demanded that Trump cease playing the song immediately.
O’Connor, incidentally, passed away at the age of 56 on July 26, 2023, after converting to Islam in 2018. She was a lifelong critic of the Roman Catholic Church’s murky record of alleged child abuse.
Her estate’s statement, shared by ‘Variety’, reads: “Throughout her life, it is well known...
The single ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was a part of her best-selling 1990 album ‘I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got’, which sold seven million copies worldwide. It was voted the No. 1 world single of the year at the Billboard Music Awards.
In a statement to ‘Variety’, O’Connor’s estate and label Chrysalis Records demanded that Trump cease playing the song immediately.
O’Connor, incidentally, passed away at the age of 56 on July 26, 2023, after converting to Islam in 2018. She was a lifelong critic of the Roman Catholic Church’s murky record of alleged child abuse.
Her estate’s statement, shared by ‘Variety’, reads: “Throughout her life, it is well known...
- 3/4/2024
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
The city of Split has long been a tourist magnet, famous for the churches and flagstones of its picturesque Old Town, and for the beauty of the rocky, sparkling Croatian coastline. But not all visitors come for the culture. Some seek the trashier pleasures of rowdy bars and cheap drinks, and all they know of the area’s history is that the spectacular medieval fortress clinging to a nearby cliffside was a “Game of Thrones” location.
Split is also where US filmmaker Travis Wilkerson (“Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?”) recently lived for a stretch, having resolved — and then failing — to make a movie about the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This he tells us on camera, at the beginning of “Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing,” the film he made instead of that one, and it’s an admission of compromise that somehow never compromises the integrity of what follows: a witty,...
Split is also where US filmmaker Travis Wilkerson (“Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?”) recently lived for a stretch, having resolved — and then failing — to make a movie about the dissolution of Yugoslavia. This he tells us on camera, at the beginning of “Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing,” the film he made instead of that one, and it’s an admission of compromise that somehow never compromises the integrity of what follows: a witty,...
- 2/27/2024
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
You’d expect the pivotal music cue in Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire to be its namesake by Leonard Cohen, a beautiful and plaintive prayer of a song. But instead it’s The B-52s’ infectious slice of bubblegum “Rock Lobster,” initially seeded through a dialogue reference, then heard fully in an eccentric sequence I won’t further detail. The funny, noteworthy quirk of “Rock Lobster,” though, is its structurally well-earned length of just under seven minutes. Who by Fire, running 161 minutes itself, also seems to be up to something, committing to that runtime as such a contained, semi-domestic drama: a provocation through duration.
A rising Québécois filmmaker making his second coproduction with France, Lesage thus far in his career has tinkered around the edges of familiar genres and subject matter, embedding these into his personal sensibility if never quite reinventing them. The camera styles of his two prior...
A rising Québécois filmmaker making his second coproduction with France, Lesage thus far in his career has tinkered around the edges of familiar genres and subject matter, embedding these into his personal sensibility if never quite reinventing them. The camera styles of his two prior...
- 2/26/2024
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Such has been the chaos in international TV over the past 12 months that you could argue Cineflix Rights’ Head of Scripted, James Durie, is underplaying things when he says it has been “a hell of a year.”
Distributors around the world have watched on in horror as the streaming sector crumbled and the crashing TV ad market decimated budgets at commercial nets everywhere, not to mention the license fee woes being experienced by the likes of the BBC. Redundancies, cost saving and restructuring took hold, and the likes of Paramount, Disney+ and Prime Video have cut back on international originals, in some cases brutally culling non-u.S. shows.
In recent months, international scripted projects from countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia that would have been viable options for the U.S. streamers have suddenly been seen as big gambles. The sense that co-production agreements with streamers could be struck faded into dust,...
Distributors around the world have watched on in horror as the streaming sector crumbled and the crashing TV ad market decimated budgets at commercial nets everywhere, not to mention the license fee woes being experienced by the likes of the BBC. Redundancies, cost saving and restructuring took hold, and the likes of Paramount, Disney+ and Prime Video have cut back on international originals, in some cases brutally culling non-u.S. shows.
In recent months, international scripted projects from countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia that would have been viable options for the U.S. streamers have suddenly been seen as big gambles. The sense that co-production agreements with streamers could be struck faded into dust,...
- 2/23/2024
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
There isn’t a conventional sound or image to be found in Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which exhilaratingly upends the audience’s senses, engaging one in a free-floating fashion that’s more in sync with the emotional effect of art with less intermediary filters than cinema, such as theater and live music. When McCabe (Warren Beatty) enters a bar in the early 1900s-era town of Presbyterian Church, stirring up the locals with his man-of-mystery routine, the filmmaker doesn’t drop accommodating and insidiously distancing breadcrumbs for the viewer, framing images so that they telegraph precise and unsurprisingly expository information.
Instead, this and other potentially standard-issue western scenes are charged with a jazz-like pulse of controlled spontaneity that would become an Altman trademark. We know as much as the bar denizens, and we’re encouraged to sort the setting and the protagonist out for ourselves. Vilmos Zsigmond’s camera prowls the bar for 10 minutes,...
Instead, this and other potentially standard-issue western scenes are charged with a jazz-like pulse of controlled spontaneity that would become an Altman trademark. We know as much as the bar denizens, and we’re encouraged to sort the setting and the protagonist out for ourselves. Vilmos Zsigmond’s camera prowls the bar for 10 minutes,...
- 2/8/2024
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
International television festival Series Mania unveiled its 2024 lineup Wednesday, with an impressive slate of world premieres that will grace the screens of Lille, France for the event running March 19-21.
Peacock’s Australia-set family drama Apples Never Fall, featuring Nyad Oscar nominee Annette Bening and Jurassic Park veteran Sam Neill as a dysfunctional couple, will screen in competition at year’s fest, as will MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine, from Narcos showrunner Chris Brancato, a crime thriller featuring The Shield star Michael Chiklis and set in the booming cocaine scene in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So Long Marianne, a Canadian-Norwegian co-production from Crave and Norway’s Nrk, will also get its first screening in Lille. The series stars Oppenheimer supporting actor Alex Wolff as legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen in a story of his turbulent relationship with Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen (played by The Last Kingdom‘s Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
Peacock’s Australia-set family drama Apples Never Fall, featuring Nyad Oscar nominee Annette Bening and Jurassic Park veteran Sam Neill as a dysfunctional couple, will screen in competition at year’s fest, as will MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine, from Narcos showrunner Chris Brancato, a crime thriller featuring The Shield star Michael Chiklis and set in the booming cocaine scene in Miami in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So Long Marianne, a Canadian-Norwegian co-production from Crave and Norway’s Nrk, will also get its first screening in Lille. The series stars Oppenheimer supporting actor Alex Wolff as legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen in a story of his turbulent relationship with Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen (played by The Last Kingdom‘s Thea Sofie Loch Næss...
- 2/7/2024
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Peacock’s Apples Never Fall, MGM+’s Hotel Cocaine and Nrk’s buzzy drama about Leonard Cohen, So Long, Marianne will be in the International Competition race at Series Mania in March.
The shows will be up against BBC Three’s UK series Boarders, France 2 drama Dans L’Ombre (In the Shadows), Ard’s German series Herrhausen, the Banker and the Bomb, ABC Australia’s House of Gods, and Franco-Hungarian co-production Rematch, which is for Arte, Disney+ and HBO Europe.
The shows comprise an interesting cross-section of U.S. and European projects, with the Annette Bening-starring thriller Apples Never Fall among the highest profile. Hotel Cocaine, about a Cuban expatriate who re-made his life in Miami, is among MGM+’s biggest recent bets, while So Long, Marianne has been building steam as a study into the life of singer-songwriter Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen.
The shows will be up against BBC Three’s UK series Boarders, France 2 drama Dans L’Ombre (In the Shadows), Ard’s German series Herrhausen, the Banker and the Bomb, ABC Australia’s House of Gods, and Franco-Hungarian co-production Rematch, which is for Arte, Disney+ and HBO Europe.
The shows comprise an interesting cross-section of U.S. and European projects, with the Annette Bening-starring thriller Apples Never Fall among the highest profile. Hotel Cocaine, about a Cuban expatriate who re-made his life in Miami, is among MGM+’s biggest recent bets, while So Long, Marianne has been building steam as a study into the life of singer-songwriter Cohen and his muse, Marianne Ihlen.
- 2/7/2024
- by Jesse Whittock
- Deadline Film + TV
Lille-based Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival and forum, has revealed its impressive 2024 main competition, which includes three U.S. streamer bows – from Peacock, and MGM+ and Disney+/HBO Europe world premieres.
The starry lineup features, for example, the much-anticipated new Liane Moriarty adaptation “Apples Never Fall” with Annette Bening as the matriarch who suddenly disappears, leaving her picture-perfect family in disarray. Currently celebrating Oscar nomination for “Nyad,” Bening is joined in the series be by Sam Neill and Alison Brie.
Alex Wolff, recently spotted in another Oscar hopeful “Oppenheimer,” will put on his deepest voice for “So Long, Marianne” about the tumultuous relationship between Leonard Cohen and Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen, from Norway’s Nrk.
With Wolff currently set to attend, Zal Batmanglij – behind Netflix’s “The Oa” – “The Artist’s” Bérénice Bejo, “Gossip Girl” alumni Kelly Rutherford, novelist Douglas Kennedy and France’s Laurent Lafitte will also deliver masterclasses.
The starry lineup features, for example, the much-anticipated new Liane Moriarty adaptation “Apples Never Fall” with Annette Bening as the matriarch who suddenly disappears, leaving her picture-perfect family in disarray. Currently celebrating Oscar nomination for “Nyad,” Bening is joined in the series be by Sam Neill and Alison Brie.
Alex Wolff, recently spotted in another Oscar hopeful “Oppenheimer,” will put on his deepest voice for “So Long, Marianne” about the tumultuous relationship between Leonard Cohen and Norwegian writer Marianne Ihlen, from Norway’s Nrk.
With Wolff currently set to attend, Zal Batmanglij – behind Netflix’s “The Oa” – “The Artist’s” Bérénice Bejo, “Gossip Girl” alumni Kelly Rutherford, novelist Douglas Kennedy and France’s Laurent Lafitte will also deliver masterclasses.
- 2/7/2024
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
As surely as the sun rises in the east, Hollywood will produce musical biopics. There’s something about that particular kind of fame that works on film, especially if the subject died tragically.
Focus Features has a potential box office hit on its hands with “Back To Black,” a biopic of the working-class British singer Amy Winehouse, who became an international sensation and then died of alcohol poisoning at age 27. All it needs to do, really, is recreate this in its entirety and the movie can’t go wrong:
The picture stars Marisa Abela, a relative newcomer who is best known for co-starring in the HBO series “Industry.” It was reported that Abela does her own singing in the film, which is good for her future prospects as a star, but kind of undercuts the “Back to Black” premise of Winehouse being a once-in-a-lifetime talent a bit. Showbiz!
It was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson,...
Focus Features has a potential box office hit on its hands with “Back To Black,” a biopic of the working-class British singer Amy Winehouse, who became an international sensation and then died of alcohol poisoning at age 27. All it needs to do, really, is recreate this in its entirety and the movie can’t go wrong:
The picture stars Marisa Abela, a relative newcomer who is best known for co-starring in the HBO series “Industry.” It was reported that Abela does her own singing in the film, which is good for her future prospects as a star, but kind of undercuts the “Back to Black” premise of Winehouse being a once-in-a-lifetime talent a bit. Showbiz!
It was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson,...
- 2/2/2024
- by Jordan Hoffman
- Gold Derby
In one of many flavorful TV interview excerpts from the band’s prime in Devo, they identify themselves as aliens who have come down to Earth in UFOs with the aim of cultural infiltration. With their red plastic “energy dome” flowerpot helmets and utilitarian uniforms that look like kids’ home-made spacesuits, the group could almost pass for interplanetary messengers, preaching change as an urgent gospel for late 20th century America in rapid regression. As one member says: “We already felt like humans were insane, so for people to be enlightened, something had to happen.”
Anyone familiar with Devo solely through their 1980 monster hit “Whip It,” or even a handful of other heyday bangers like “Beautiful World,” “Working in the Coalmine,” “Girl U Want” or “Freedom of Choice,” will likely find Chris Smith’s propulsive documentary enlightening as well as vigorously entertaining.
At one point after the group’s classic lineup had undergone changes,...
Anyone familiar with Devo solely through their 1980 monster hit “Whip It,” or even a handful of other heyday bangers like “Beautiful World,” “Working in the Coalmine,” “Girl U Want” or “Freedom of Choice,” will likely find Chris Smith’s propulsive documentary enlightening as well as vigorously entertaining.
At one point after the group’s classic lineup had undergone changes,...
- 1/24/2024
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Norah Jones has announced her new album Visions, her first new (non-Christmas) LP in nearly four years.
Ahead of Visions’ March 8 release, Jones has shared its first single “Running,” which — like the majority of the album — is a collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels, a contributor to both Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Arcs.
“The reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and ‘Running’ was one of them...
Ahead of Visions’ March 8 release, Jones has shared its first single “Running,” which — like the majority of the album — is a collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels, a contributor to both Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Arcs.
“The reason I called the album Visions is because a lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep, and ‘Running’ was one of them...
- 1/18/2024
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
This post contains spoilers for the premiere of "True Detective: Night Country."
Historically, "True Detective" theme songs have always been unusual earworms. In its first season, The Handsome Family's "Far From Any Road" set a strange tone with its percussive arrangement, deep twang, and lyrics like "When the last light warms the rocks/And the rattlesnakes unfold/Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones." Mix in the intro's moody, cloudy, sometimes objectifying silhouette shots, and viewers got a good sense of what "True Detective" was all about. Season 2 kept the silhouettes but replaced the country tune with Leonard Cohen's gravelly, whispery "Nevermind," while the show's third season featured blues singer Son Houses' "Death Letter Blues."
"True Detective" returns this week with a new title ("True Detective: Night Country") and a new theme song, and this time the show's signature tune is far from obscure. Instead, it's Billie Eilish's triple platinum,...
Historically, "True Detective" theme songs have always been unusual earworms. In its first season, The Handsome Family's "Far From Any Road" set a strange tone with its percussive arrangement, deep twang, and lyrics like "When the last light warms the rocks/And the rattlesnakes unfold/Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones." Mix in the intro's moody, cloudy, sometimes objectifying silhouette shots, and viewers got a good sense of what "True Detective" was all about. Season 2 kept the silhouettes but replaced the country tune with Leonard Cohen's gravelly, whispery "Nevermind," while the show's third season featured blues singer Son Houses' "Death Letter Blues."
"True Detective" returns this week with a new title ("True Detective: Night Country") and a new theme song, and this time the show's signature tune is far from obscure. Instead, it's Billie Eilish's triple platinum,...
- 1/15/2024
- by Valerie Ettenhofer
- Slash Film
While it sounds like a lot of country songs, Blake Shelton’s “God Gave Me You” has some unusual lyrics. The rock singer who wrote the song gave fans insight into his lyricism. Shelton also discussed what he thought when he first heard the track on the radio.
The writer of Blake Shelton’s ‘God Gave Me You’ likes the track’s line about martyrdom
Christian rock singer Dave Barnes wrote and recorded the original version of “God Gave Me You.” During a 2012 interview with American Songwriter, Barnes was asked about the writing of “God Gave Me You.”
“It didn’t take long at all to write,” he said. “I really do think I wrote it in an afternoon. Those are the nice ones, where a melody and lyric idea match up perfectly. It was quick.”
Barnes had a lot to say about the tune’s lyrics. “It’s funny...
The writer of Blake Shelton’s ‘God Gave Me You’ likes the track’s line about martyrdom
Christian rock singer Dave Barnes wrote and recorded the original version of “God Gave Me You.” During a 2012 interview with American Songwriter, Barnes was asked about the writing of “God Gave Me You.”
“It didn’t take long at all to write,” he said. “I really do think I wrote it in an afternoon. Those are the nice ones, where a melody and lyric idea match up perfectly. It was quick.”
Barnes had a lot to say about the tune’s lyrics. “It’s funny...
- 1/10/2024
- by Matthew Trzcinski
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
Ruth Seymour, the longtime leader of Santa Monica-based public radio station Kcrw died Friday, station president Jennifer Ferro confirmed to Deadline. She was 88.
Seymour was at the from station 1977 to 2010. In that time she transformed it from a quality radio outlet run out of a junior high school classroom to one of the most influential NPR stations in the country produced in a state of the art studio at Santa Monica College.
Seymour initially came on as a consultant and became General Manager in 1978. Her ascension to a management role roughly coincided with the station moving to a powerful new transmitter, which greatly expanded its reach.
At about the same time, National Public Radio launched Morning Edition. Seymour decided to make a morning block of the 2-hour show, running it three times 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. The move helped Kcrw become a mainstay in many Angelenos’ lives.
“That way...
Seymour was at the from station 1977 to 2010. In that time she transformed it from a quality radio outlet run out of a junior high school classroom to one of the most influential NPR stations in the country produced in a state of the art studio at Santa Monica College.
Seymour initially came on as a consultant and became General Manager in 1978. Her ascension to a management role roughly coincided with the station moving to a powerful new transmitter, which greatly expanded its reach.
At about the same time, National Public Radio launched Morning Edition. Seymour decided to make a morning block of the 2-hour show, running it three times 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. The move helped Kcrw become a mainstay in many Angelenos’ lives.
“That way...
- 12/22/2023
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
Over the course of her career, Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira has sold over 60 million records worldwide and has won numerous awards including Grammys, Latin Grammys, World Music Awards, American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards, just to name a few. She is the only artist from South America to have a number one song in the US, and has had four of the 20 top-selling hits of the last decade—including 2006’s unforgettable “Hips Don’t Lie,” the biggest-selling single of the 21st Century, which reached the #1 spot in an astonishing 55 countries. Shakira began writing songs at the age of eight, learned to speak English by studying the work of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Walt Whitman, and took history classes at UCLA during her break between albums.
At the age of 18, she founded the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation which currently provides education and nutrition to over six thousand impoverished children in...
At the age of 18, she founded the Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation which currently provides education and nutrition to over six thousand impoverished children in...
- 12/21/2023
- Look to the Stars
In just a little over three minutes Brandy Clark flies to Paris, reads Lonesome Dove, listens to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and goes on a psychedelic trip. But she still can’t forget the lover who broke her heart. That’s the genius premise of “Buried,” Clark’s Grammy-nominated song and a standout of her superb self-titled 2023 album.
Written with Jessie Jo Dillon, “Buried” is nominated for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance at this year’s Grammy Awards and is built around a classic-country switcheroo. All throughout the lyrics,...
Written with Jessie Jo Dillon, “Buried” is nominated for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance at this year’s Grammy Awards and is built around a classic-country switcheroo. All throughout the lyrics,...
- 12/13/2023
- by Joseph Hudak
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: The creator of Canadian smash Letterkenny has struck a multi-year content deal with streamer Crave and New Metric Media that Crave’s programing boss says is a first of its kind.
With Letterkenny’s 12th and final season dropping on Boxing Day, Jared Keeso will subsequently make 49 episodes of Letterkenny spin-offs including Shoresy and other potential shows across several years.
Unveiling the news to Deadline, Crave VP Content Development & Programming Justin Stockman said “this is probably the only deal that has ever been done like this in Canada.” The deal does not prevent Keeso from making shows for other platforms, eschewing the golden handcuffs approach taken by some of the major Hollywood players.
“There is not a lot of pre-committing in Canadian content so this is pretty unique but shows our belief in Jared and the show, and in other shows that don’t exist yet,” added Stockman. “This...
With Letterkenny’s 12th and final season dropping on Boxing Day, Jared Keeso will subsequently make 49 episodes of Letterkenny spin-offs including Shoresy and other potential shows across several years.
Unveiling the news to Deadline, Crave VP Content Development & Programming Justin Stockman said “this is probably the only deal that has ever been done like this in Canada.” The deal does not prevent Keeso from making shows for other platforms, eschewing the golden handcuffs approach taken by some of the major Hollywood players.
“There is not a lot of pre-committing in Canadian content so this is pretty unique but shows our belief in Jared and the show, and in other shows that don’t exist yet,” added Stockman. “This...
- 12/6/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
Cat Power and Iggy Pop have teamed up for a new cover of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.”
The cover arrives as a single from an upcoming compilation album titled The Faithful: A Tribute to Marianne Faithfull, organized by In The Q Records, Bandbox, and the Women of Rock Oral History Project to help raise funds for Faithfull as she “recovers from Long Covid.” Thus, the version of the song that Cat Power’s Chan Marshall and Pop have delivered pays homage to Faithfull’s 1979 version of the song, with a driving beat and an ambient sense of tension.
Overtop, Marshall’s multi-tracked vocals carry Lennon’s powerful words, while Pop dips in throughout with spoken word lines, sounding almost like a late-career Leonard Cohen, proclaiming a solemn truth with a low, commanding growl. Listen to the single below.
In a statement, Marshall expressed her excitement to be part of the project.
The cover arrives as a single from an upcoming compilation album titled The Faithful: A Tribute to Marianne Faithfull, organized by In The Q Records, Bandbox, and the Women of Rock Oral History Project to help raise funds for Faithfull as she “recovers from Long Covid.” Thus, the version of the song that Cat Power’s Chan Marshall and Pop have delivered pays homage to Faithfull’s 1979 version of the song, with a driving beat and an ambient sense of tension.
Overtop, Marshall’s multi-tracked vocals carry Lennon’s powerful words, while Pop dips in throughout with spoken word lines, sounding almost like a late-career Leonard Cohen, proclaiming a solemn truth with a low, commanding growl. Listen to the single below.
In a statement, Marshall expressed her excitement to be part of the project.
- 12/5/2023
- by Jo Vito
- Consequence - Music
This article contains spoilers for "Invincible."
The initial premise of "Invincible" is what it would be like to be Superman's son and follow in your dad's footsteps. Mark Grayson/Invincible (Steven Yeun) is the son of Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), Earth's greatest superhero and visitor from the planet Viltrum. Unfortunately, Viltrum is a fascist empire and Nolan isn't as benevolent as he appears.
"Invincible" season 1 ended with a clash between father and son. Nolan beat Mark to a pulp but flew off in grief after realizing how human he'd become. A question lingering at the season's end was when Omni-Man would return — pretty soon, it turned out.
"Invincible" season 2, episode 3, "This Missive, This Machination!" features Mark called to the alien planet Thraxa; the cliffhanger ending is him coming face to face with the planet's ruler, Nolan. Episode 4, "It's Been A While," opens with a flashback montage (scored to a...
The initial premise of "Invincible" is what it would be like to be Superman's son and follow in your dad's footsteps. Mark Grayson/Invincible (Steven Yeun) is the son of Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons), Earth's greatest superhero and visitor from the planet Viltrum. Unfortunately, Viltrum is a fascist empire and Nolan isn't as benevolent as he appears.
"Invincible" season 1 ended with a clash between father and son. Nolan beat Mark to a pulp but flew off in grief after realizing how human he'd become. A question lingering at the season's end was when Omni-Man would return — pretty soon, it turned out.
"Invincible" season 2, episode 3, "This Missive, This Machination!" features Mark called to the alien planet Thraxa; the cliffhanger ending is him coming face to face with the planet's ruler, Nolan. Episode 4, "It's Been A While," opens with a flashback montage (scored to a...
- 12/2/2023
- by Devin Meenan
- Slash Film
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