Tag:

Interview

'The Rainmaker' Interview: Episode 9 Explained
TV & Streaming

‘The Rainmaker’ Interview: Episode 9 Explained

by jummy84
written by jummy84

[Warning: The following post contains spoilers for The Rainmaker Episode 9.]

We’re in the homestretch of The Rainmaker now. The penultimate episode of the USA Network drama finally brought the big case into the courtroom, and of course, nothing went to plan for Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan). There was at least one promising — albeit highly unexpected — development by the end, though, and things did wrap up as well as could be expected for Bruiser (Lana Parrilla) and her father.

The episode began with Rudy and Deck (P.J. Byrne), now separated from Bruiser’s firm, arguing the case against Leo Drummond (John Slattery). Things quickly went off the rails when Rudy decided to scrap his opening statement mid-sentence and instead deliver his true theory of the case — even if it did invite a motion for dismissal of the entire case from Drummond.

To support his assertion that the hospital covered up having a serial killer nurse on staff, Rudy called the elusive Jackie Lemanczyk (Gemma-Leah Devereux) to the stand. As much of a triumph as her very presence was, though, her initial testimony was for naught because her evidence about Melvin Pritcher’s (Dan Fogler) use of the medication dispensation machine was illegally obtained and, thus, inadmissible. Leo, meanwhile, painted the prosecution as simply seeking a villain after a self-inflicted tragedy.

After Rudy and Deck tried to scramble to sign the other victims of Pritcher’s as a Hail Mary to save the case, they found they were once again a step behind Sarah Plankmore (Madison Iseman), who’d already contracted them for silence. Making matters worse, Dot’s (Karen Bryson) testimony, while emotional, also allowed Drummond to paint her son as a habitual liar whose sobriety at the time of his death was very much still in question.

Bruiser, who had to grapple with the feds offering her a deal to help entrap her father, came up with a new plan: Put Jackie back on the stand to testify about the Narpans machine. At first, the plan was a success; Jackie successfully revealed that the machine didn’t erase data, like the defense insisted, and she also suggested Melvin’s behavior around Donny Ray Black was antithetical to usual nursing practices. However, Sarah, who’d already fully crossed the rubicon, was called upon to deploy the firm’s so-called “Nuts and Sl*ts” routine to discredit Jackie by making her seem mentally unstable.

Christopher Barr / USA Network

When Brad (Wade Briggs) objected to Leo making Sarah second chair over him and reminded his boss that he knew where the bodies were buried, Leo smarted back that he wasn’t actually the one who buried them. (“Relax, Brad, you’re still useful as a backup singer, but that girl’s a star,” he said for added effect. Ouch.)

Elsewhere in the episode, Bruiser finally confronted her father, and he insisted, “I’ve done a lot of things, but I didn’t kill that woman. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” Later, she finally learned the truth about what happened to the young mother Rosalie, who was a whistleblower, and as it turned out, Bruiser’s dad really didn’t kill her. It was just a misunderstanding that led to her death at the hands of one of their associates.

Before he and Prince (Tommie Earl Jenkins) took off to evade arrest, he had one parting gift: Tied up in Prince’s basement was none other than Melvin Pritcher.

So what will happen next? Well, Dan Fogler teased, “He leaves bread crumbs. He lets himself get caught, and then you see him in the basement with, who? … They might team up and use, use some of Melvin’s knowledge to catch the real bad guy. That’s all I’m gonna say.”

As for the absolution Bruiser got about her father, series creator Michael Seitzman said of the development, “Bruiser… wants the truth. Everything with Bruiser is about honesty. ‘First, I want to know the truth, and I want the people close to me to be honest with me.’ … She’s had two problems with her father: One is that he’s been dishonest with her, both by literally lying to her and also lying by omission…. and the other problem she’s been having with her father is that she’s wondering, ‘Did he do something terrible? He did something bad, but he didn’t commit murder, right?’ And so what I think she’s feeling there is relief that he finally told her the truth, which is, in their love language, the truth is, I love you. That’s what she’s been waiting for.

But I think also, she’s feeling relief that he’s not the monster.”

The Rainmaker, Fridays, 10/9c, USA Network

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
'John Candy: I Like Me' Review: Colin Hanks Doc
TV & Streaming

I Like Me’ Documentary INTERVIEW

by jummy84
written by jummy84

[Editor’s note: This interview was originally published on September 4, 2025 and has been lightly updated for the film‘s streaming release on Friday, October 10.]

On the surface, yes, the idea of making a documentary on the life of John Candy seems like a pretty great idea — I mean, who doesn’t love John Candy? — but as director Colin Hanks points out, well, wait, not so fast.

Now, let’s quickly note that Colin Hanks would know what he’s talking about because he, in fact, did make a documentary about the life of John Candy. And the problem that presented itself was, yes, everyone does love John Candy. As much as this is a man whose life should be celebrated, watching his friends and family talk about how great he is doesn’t necessarily make a riveting narrative for a film. 

'Kokuho'

What Hanks deftly does with his “John Candy: I Like Me” is frame his film around Candy’s anxiety about his own mortality. John Candy’s father died from a heart attack when Candy was only five, so he lived with the notion and mindset that he was possibly living on borrowed time — something that, sadly, came to fruition in 1994. (It’s frankly shocking to think John Candy has now been gone for over 30 years. Even more shocking, Candy’s “Uncle Buck” costar Macaulay Culkin appears as a talking head in this film and reminds the viewer he is now older than Candy was when Candy passed.)

Ahead, Hanks takes us through the process of crafting a film based on a larger-than-life public figure who still means so much to so many people. And why he almost didn’t make the film because of his own personal history with Candy, who he had met on the set of his father Tom Hanks’ film, “Splash.” It was a history that was so special to Hanks that, maybe, it was best to just remember him as he already did.

Obviously — and thankfully — Hanks decided otherwise, and his film will open this year’s Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday night.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

IndieWire: I had never seen “Yellowbelly.” It’s at least tied with the hardest I’ve laughed watching a movie this year.

Colin Hanks: Right? Conan O’Brien told me that story on the podcast, and I was like, “Oh, I’m going to have to check that out.” And then it wasn’t until we spoke with him for the film that we were able to track the sketch down, and I laughed so hard. Conan says it, the fact that that’s such an Oppenheimer moment for Conan, who is someone that I just admire so much. I’m so glad that a sketch from all the way back then that John was in is one of the hardest times you’ve laughed in a movie this year. That brings me so much joy.

This is your third documentary. How long have you wanted to make this one specifically?

After your first one, you have your list of the ones that you really hope one day that you’re going to make, and then you find out you don’t quite have the currency yet to make that one. The truth of the matter is everyone universally will say like, “insert person’s name,” and they’ll be like, “Oh, someone should make a documentary about him.” And I always go, “OK, but what is the film? What is the story that you’re actually really trying to tell? What is it saying?” Because, otherwise, I don’t want to just do a visual Wikipedia entry.

And you address it with Bill Murray at the beginning when he’s struggling to say anything negative about John Candy.

Exactly. Eventually, I got an email saying, “Hey, Ryan Reynolds wants to get in touch with you.” And so, he and I hopped on the phone, and we started talking. I already knew that Ryan was a massive John Candy fan, and he was just like, “I think there should be a documentary. I think you should direct it.” And that was when I really started to do the due diligence, and when I talked with Ryan, he had mentioned that Chris and Jen Candy were involved. So, I got in touch with them — and I’d known them through social circles for quite some time.

Once I figured out that John passed from the very thing that his father had passed away from? I’m 47. My mom passed when she was 49. John’s dad passed at 35. And John passed at 43. I started really taking a deep dive into my life in my late thirties, early forties. And really sifting through, like, childhood trauma, because everyone has it. That was the launching point for me.

It was really a sort of stupid, basic approach, but when you think of overweight actors who died young, the ones you think of all died of drug overdoses. So, “Wait, John died of a heart attack? His dad died of a heart attack when he was five?” It just became so much more personal, just because I am coming to the age that my mom was when she passed away, and that really puts a lot into focus. And so, to find out, after much, much more digging, that John really had that sense that he was living on borrowed time, and that he wasn’t sure if he was going to live past 35.

John Candy in JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME Photo Credit: Prime Video © Amazon Content Services LLC
‘John Candy: I Like Me’Courtesy of Prime

That’s a really interesting point. John Belushi and Chris Farley both died of drug overdoses at 33 and there’s this everlasting legend about them. John Candy doesn’t have that, even though he also died young.

Well, welcome to the creative process that I was going through. That was part of the initial, “Well, why is that? What is that?” And one of the things that I landed on was that John is so beloved by so many people, because of his everyman qualities. Everyone looked at him, and just went, “That guy. I like that guy. I want to spend time with him.” And he had that very salt of the Earth, blue collar — you just wanted to be with him.

What was your first introduction to John Candy as a kid? And I know the obvious answer is probably “Splash,” but I don’t want to assume.

Well, technically, “Splash,” yeah, but John was someone that my dad worked with. So, I didn’t necessarily think of him as John Candy.

Oh, I see.

I just saw him as like, that’s one of my dad’s friends. They work together. But, look, I have very, very vivid memories of being on the set of “Splash.” And seeing John, and Eugene Levy, in fact, and them all working together. So, that was my initial introduction. And then, obviously, “Volunteers” was also part of John being around. I have some very fond memories of John, a couple of dinner parties, and being at my dad and Rita [Wilson]’s wedding.

John left an impression on me even as a kid. Macaulay Culkin speaks to it in the movie when Mac says, “He made you feel important.” Even as a kid, he made you feel like your opinion mattered, and your emotions mattered. And that’s 1,000 percent accurate, because that was definitely how John made me feel. And then eventually then it becomes, oh, yeah — seeing him in “Spaceballs,” or “The Great Outdoors.” Like, “Yeah. That’s John. I know that guy.”

I feel like a really interesting perspective for you. A lot of filmmakers making this film can get the same interviews, can get the same footage, but you’re in an interesting position where he was your dad’s co-worker and met him. You have a memory of how he treated you.

Yeah. Very, very true. In fact, in a strange way, I think that was one of my initial reasons not to do it.

Why?

Just because, well, I met him, I have these memories of him, I don’t know if I want to dig into that. I’d much rather just have those memories as opposed to spend however many months or years of my life now collecting other people’s memories and going from there. But Chris and Jen [Candy] were so adamant. I don’t want to put words in their mouth, but they let it be known that it was their opinion that they felt like I was one of the only guys that can do it. Then that just made me go like, OK, well, let’s set myself aside here and do some digging.

John Candy in JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME Photo Credit: Prime Video © Amazon Content Services LLC
‘John Candy: I Like Me’Courtesy of Prime

You mentioned a film that I’ve seen a million times, “The Great Outdoors”…

Yes.

I think you did something really poignant when you put that scene of him on the boat, and he’s giving his family ring to his son [Chris Young], who says, “Oh, like you spent with your dad out here, and he did this for you.” And the way John Candy reacts to that, “Yeah.” And I can now tell he’s really sad.

But you know that he didn’t do that with his dad.

Honestly, I even watched it three weeks ago, because it’s on cable still nonstop. It hit me so hard.

Look, I felt like that was one of the things that we landed upon that ended up becoming, I think, a little bit of a responsibility. You don’t want it to just be like, “And then he made this movie.”

Right.

And I know this, as an actor: If I’m going to spend time away from my own family, and if I’m going to spend time away from my life, and, basically, put my life on hold to go make this movie? And the way that movies are made, basically, you don’t have a life. You wake up in the morning, you go straight to work and then you go home. And then you do the exact same thing the next day. You’ve got to find something in there to make that worth it. You know?

[Laughs] Sometimes you just need the money. But you want it to be worthwhile! And when Jen Candy was speaking to that idea, that he really did look for roles, and took roles that spoke to a specific slate that he wanted to sell people, a certain mentality, a certain way to be, that really made a whole lot more sense.

With “The Great Outdoors”…

What is ostensibly just a funny film, “The Great Outdoors”…

Right…

To be able to then find a moment where I’m watching a scene I’ve seen countless times, but I’m seeing it in a completely different way? That’s the kind of stuff that we really wanted to highlight. And I think we were able to accomplish that with a handful of moments from his films. But that one lands for me a lot. I’m actually really, really happy that you mentioned that, that particular point. Because that always really resonates with me.

He’s in a lot of movies. How did you pick the films to concentrate on? One I’m glad you did was “Summer Rental.” I’m a big fan. It’s a Carl Reiner film. And It’s his first starring role and I think it really shows what he can do.

Well, here’s the weird thing, there are so many of John’s films that I have not seen, because he was in a bunch.

True.

But “Summer Rental,” I’ve always thought of as one of the quintessential John Candy movies. And the fact that that was his first leading role, it felt like it was really important. And also it shows that in his first leading man role, he’s tapped by Carl Reiner.

Right…

Who is a legend and says, “I want to work with this guy.” And loves it so much that then he tells his friend, Mel Brooks, another comedy legend, “Oh, you’ve got to work with this guy. You’ve got to meet this guy. Not only is he great, he’s a great human being.”

John Candy in JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME Photo Credit: Prime Video © Amazon Content Services LLC
‘John Candy: I Like Me’Courtesy of Prime

You’ve made two prior documentaries. When you’re trying to get people to talk to you for this one, does that help? Do people say, “I know who you are but have you made a movie?”

Well, if they do, they don’t really tell me. But there are two bonuses here. I remember Marty Short, whom I’ve known for a very long time, he’s one of the very first people I approached about, “Should I do this?” He was like, “No one is going to say no to you. They’re all going to want to do it.” And so, that was helpful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is available.

In the film you spent some time on his role in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” There’s always that story out there where they did reshoots for the ending, which is true, but gave John one million dollars to come in for his role. Is this true? He didn’t seem like a place in his career yet where that would happen.

I call this “the Bill Simmons conspiracy,” because that was how it first came to my attention, hearing Bill Simmons talking about it at some point. Not that he coined it. No, I don’t believe that’s true. In fact, I talked about it with Chris, and I don’t think that’s true. I think, logistically, that doesn’t make much sense.

It doesn’t.

If you’re doing re-shoots on a movie, you’re not spending a million dollars willy-nilly.

Right, his biggest movie at the time was “Stripes.” “Let’s get the fourth lead from ‘Stripes’ and just pay him whatever he wants.”

[Laughs] No.

Now, five years later, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Earlier you said, “You say someone’s name, and, oh,  we should make a documentary about them.” Macaulay Culkin is amazing in this. As an interviewer, I’m just like, the stuff he’s saying to you is incredible. I would watch a Macaulay Culkin documentary, because that guy has to have some stories.

Yeah, he does. His life is incredibly well-chronicled in that way. And it’s interesting, Mac’s interview was a good reminder to me of just try and grab as much as you possibly can. Because it was late in the process, we were getting close to the wire, and I was just like, look, at the end of the day, he was a little kid. How much is he going to be able to express to us that speaks to our important themes?

And, of course, he actually reminded me of what my experience was meeting him. It was a really, really great reminder to just … You never know. To take a shot. Find out. His insight was just, honestly, profound.

It was. I was riveted. The way he openly talks about his own father, but then how John Candy would come over and like, “Hey. Everything OK at home?” That just says so much about John Candy, that he could pick up on that, even on “Uncle Buck.”

Well, it also says a lot about Mac. You know what I mean?

I do.

The fact that he realizes that now. And, by the way, let’s also talk about the two really big mind-blowing things that he reveals is that. A, he’s now officially older than John was when he passed away

I was going to bring that up. And he’s now eight years older than he was when John Candy was in “Uncle Buck.”

Wow. That’s crazy. But then his insight into John Hughes and John Candy’s relationship. And the fact that that’s the connection you should actually really make. Everyone thinks it’s Molly Ringwald, or him, but it really should be John.

But your instinct isn’t wrong. I’m sure at some point he may make a documentary, but who knows. I’m always a big proponent of … and this is something that was very adamant early on, just from day one, of the Tower Records documentary, I’m not in the business of ruining anyone’s life. Or trying to drag someone through parts of their life that they don’t want to go through.

That’s what I liked about you talking to Macaulay Culkin, because he, obviously, just wants to talk about this.

Yeah.

Some of the stuff I’m sure is probably hurtful to him, but it seemed like a positive experience? It didn’t feel like you were going somewhere with him that he didn’t want to go.

What’s interesting was, with “All Things Must Pass,” I really wanted to make the movie. It was a passion for me, because it was my first one. With “Nos Amis, the Eagles of Death Metal” doc, I didn’t want to make that documentary. The guys in the band didn’t want to make the documentary, because they didn’t want what was happening. But we knew each other, and we agreed, together, that we maybe don’t want to do this, but that it is important, not just for our healing, but then for everyone else that was involved in that [Paris] incident.

With this one, again, it was, well, I don’t know if I really want to do it. It’s really about Chris and Jen and Rose. Do they want to do this? And they were so adamant. And they were so like, “We really want to do this, and we really want to celebrate…” They really wanted to celebrate their father, and really remind people of that. When you have those agreements with your subject, so that you’re on the same page essentially, and there is no question as to what the motives are — that’s really, really important.

“John Candy: I Like Me” will premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival as the official Opening Night Gala. It will start streaming on Prime Video on Friday, October 10.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
'Fuck My Son' Movie AI Controversy: Todd Rohal Interview
TV & Streaming

‘Fuck My Son’ Movie AI Controversy: Todd Rohal Interview

by jummy84
written by jummy84

If you’re worried about AI taking over the entertainment industry, close your eyes for a moment and imagine your worst case scenario.

What kind of villains do you picture? Soulless corporate executives gleefully watching their bottom lines go up while they slash thousands of human jobs? Insufferable tech bros hi-fiving each other at the notion that their lack of creative talent no longer prevents them from flooding the internet with anti-woke “Star Wars” rip-offs generated by typing a few lazy prompts into an app? Unshowered right-wing nationalists producing dangerous deepfakes while sulking in their basements?

Whatever pro-AI bogeymen haunt your particular nightmares, they probably don’t look like Todd Rohal. A seasoned veteran of the American indie film scene, his offbeat comedies have been popping up in places like Sundance, SXSW, and Adult Swim for the better part of three decades. He cut his teeth shooting 35mm films before digital editing was invented. He self distributed his early movies by cold-calling theaters under fake names and convincing them to screen his single 35mm print until he had to drive it to another venue. When he was tired of screening his first feature “The Guatemalan Handshake,” he buried his personal print in the desert and ceremonially burned all of his remaining DVD copies.

1984, (aka NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR), from left: John Hurt, Suzanna Hamilton, 1984. ©Atlantic Releasing/courtesy Everett Collection

He’s had the kind of idiosyncratic career that the independent film ecosystem theoretically exists to elevate and promote. So why is he getting death threats over a comic book adaptation about an old lady forcing Tipper Newton to fuck her son at gunpoint?

TORONTO, ONTARIO - SEPTEMBER 10: Todd Rohal attends the premiere of
Todd Rohal attending the TIFF premiere of “Fuck My Son” Getty Images

If you’ve attended a genre film festival this fall, Rohal’s new film “Fuck My Son!” has probably popped up on your radar. Adapted from legendary underground comic artist Johnny Ryan’s graphic novel of the same name, the film is a throwback to the kind of old-school midnight movie that prioritizes shock value above all else. Robert Longstreet dons a dress and a thick layer of prosthetics to play an old lady whose sex positive ethos takes a dark turn when she kidnaps a woman (played by Tipper Newton) and forces her to — you guessed it — fuck her horrifically deformed son.

The film is a feast of practical effects and unapologetic bad taste, designed to be enjoyed with rowdy crowds in packed theaters in the wee hours of the morning. The shock value should be recognizable to anyone who can remember reading Ryan’s comics in the back pages of VICE magazine. During a recent conversation with IndieWire at a Silver Lake sidewalk cafe hours before the film screened at Beyond Fest, Rohal explained that he was drawn to those comics because they reflected the kind of progressive, anti-censorship worldview that he hoped to promote with his own work.

“I saw his stuff as offensive, but in a way I understood that was exciting and funny and made me react,” Rohal said of Ryan’s work. “Not knowing his politics I was basically like ‘We are very aligned politically, I’m guessing, because I’m a very liberal-thinking person, rights for everyone, very against censorship. And that’s everything Johnny is about.”

Rohal’s adaptation begins with a fake pre-show that might exist at a nightmarish MAGA version of AMC Theaters. In the world of the film, a fictional religious movie studio is distributing “Fuck My Son!,” but wants its audience to be able to enjoy the film without offending their Christian sensibilities. It offers the film in a format called Perv-O-Vision, which allows prudish viewers to put on a pair of glasses that makes any nude scene appear as if the actors are fully clothed.

The pre-show includes a demonstration of Perv-O-Vision that’s complete with full frontal male nudity and an audience of theatergoers that are very clearly generated with AI. It’s not a sophisticated attempt at replacing human actors — it’s slop in every sense of the word, intended as a satire of the kinds of right-wing corporations who would sincerely use bad AI to cut video production costs.

“I liked the idea that ‘Fuck My Son’ would be presented as a corporate product,” Rohal said with a laugh. “The beginning of the movie is supposed to feel like you’re in a corporate environment. So I thought ‘What would corporations use when portraying this?,’ which led me to say ‘I want to use AI.’ Thinking that would be very clear in its messaging! I’m learning that it’s not clear, that for any AI usage, the context and intent has no bearing for a lot of people.”

In addition to the pre-show, a character in the film is visited by the Meatie Mates, a fake Christian cartoon about singing meat that is presented as a much more hateful version of “Veggie Tales.” The characters were designed by human animator Cable Hardin in a 2D sequence, but Rohal used a mix of AI tools to make them look worse and worse as they reappear throughout the film. The effect feels like watching the deterioration of a media company in real time, as it’s easy to imagine a Christian TV producer commissioning the original human-drawn characters before switching to cheap AI a decade later.

“Fuck My Son!” premiered in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival, where the section’s famously rowdy crowds embraced the film wholeheartedly. Rohal thought the AI jokes all landed, so he was shocked to wake up the next day and find that the film was being bombarded with negative Letterboxd reviews. (A large plurality of the film’s reviews are either half a star or one star, and the three most “liked” reviews are devoted to criticizing its use of AI.) Rohal was blindsided by the controversy in part because the online reaction was completely different than the enthusiasm he saw in the theater.

“The Toronto screening was crazy. Through the roof! And then the next day, I didn’t look online but [my publicist] told me ‘It’s pretty rough,’” Rohal said. “The online response is pretty strong. I read it and I was looking through some things, and I had to stop. There were hundreds of comments and I was like ‘This just doesn’t make any sense.’ The difference between what I experienced last night and this… There was no way that much hatred was in the room. Because they would have vocalized that! It would have lessened the cheering and laughter.”

The phenomenon only became more curious when the film experienced similar reactions at Fantastic Fest and Beyond Fest — joy during the actual screenings and hatred online. The disparate reactions suggest that not everyone criticizing the film has seen it. Rohal pointed to his openness about the film’s use of AI in its writeup on the TIFF website, in which Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky wrote (with Rohal’s permission) that the pre-show “satirizes the corporatization of theatrical moviegoing, complete with freakish deployments of AI slop” as a possible spark that lit the fire. The online hatred snowballed, with people accusing Rohal and his team of using AI in other parts of the film that were shot entirely practically. The prevailing narrative online became that “Fuck My Son!” is an AI-generated movie, rather than a movie that satirically uses AI in a few carefully chosen shots.

“People saw [the writeup], there must have been some kind of Slack channel and people must have been like ‘We’re gonna blast this with horrible reviews because we’re these patriots of anti-AI.’ Because a lot of things people were saying were inaccurate. People said ‘Fifty percent of this movie is AI.’ That’s not true! The technology isn’t even there to do what I was accused of doing, which is fascinating.”

Rohal continues to tour the film to ravenous festival audiences (next up he’s heading to France for the Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival and Spain for the Sitges Film Festival), and he’s self-distributing the movie, with a series of 35mm screenings in theaters across America booked through early 2026. But he can’t help but laugh at the surreal experience of having to defend his film online every day to angry cinephiles spreading blatant misinformation about it. Case in point: he recently posted the film’s poster on Instagram, where he was slammed with complaints about the “AI poster” that was actually made by a human artist without any generative AI.

Rohal is doing his best to keep a sense of humor about the ordeal, noting the parallels between the kinds of hate mail and death threats that Ryan received for his original comics with the ones that he’s now getting for adapting them.

“I responded to some people online, and they just won’t engage in conversation about it,” Rohal said. “People threatened to kill me on Letterboxd. Someone said there should be drone strikes against me until not an atom of my body exists. And Johnny’s gotten death threats his whole life for doing his comics… It’s extreme.”

As an outside observer, it’s hard not to chuckle at the notion that this particular film has become the lightning rod for such impassioned debate about what we want the future of the film industry to look like. We’re talking about a movie in which Tipper Newton is forced to remove a monster’s dirty diaper and look for his genitalia, only to grab what she thinks is his penis but is actually a loose hotdog that he misplaced. In a saner world, this film probably wouldn’t be discussed as anything other than the shocking diversion from everyday life that it offers. But it also makes sense that the midnight movie audience, a group that thrives on its willingness to treat lowbrow films as serious works of art, would react so strongly to AI making its way into their world.

On one hand, it’s easy to empathize with the position that a section of pop culture known for embracing outsiders who lack the resources of corporate filmmakers would object to seeing indie artists use the very tools that corporations use to cut costs and make soul-crushingly bad content. But Rohal makes the opposite argument — if AI is here to stay, why should we cede all the power to the very corporations we’re already mad at?

“It’s like beating up a hobo for stealing your jobs, and he’s just collecting cans, goddamnit! He’s just doing whatever he can, and you’re gonna beat him up? You’ve got to understand that the jobs you’re trying to save are a corporation that’s holding onto something and they’ve got control over our entire culture. And I’m like, that’s really what we should be pushing back against. And I don’t see that,” Rohal said. “The way things are going terrifies me, because we’re essentially handing this technology over to evil people to do evil things, when we should be learning it ourselves.”

Rohal is a bit more optimistic about AI being used in indie films than I am, but it should go without saying that any serious discussion of a piece of art should at least consider the artist’s intentions. How is telling an independent filmmaker that he can’t use a bit of AI to satirize the people who use AI maliciously any different from telling artists that they can’t depict any words or actions that they wouldn’t condone in their own personal lives?

“It’s crazy to me that there is a large majority of people that can’t separate that, that can’t see the context of things or question why it’s being used,” Rohal said. “It’s just blind hatred and a desire to ban something completely. I think there’s an innate human desire to hate and destroy other humans. It just happens, whatever side of the political spectrum you’re on. I remember being a kid and seeing ads for ‘The Last Temptation of Christ.’ I was growing up in Ohio and churches were protesting it. And now we think ‘Oh that’s so cool, you were protested by the Catholic Church!’ But at the time, that was probably not cool to Martin Scorsese when he was like ‘I want people to see this movie! I care about it!’ And that’s how I feel now. It’s so weird that it’s about technology now, but maybe that is just the time we live in. Technology is this weird religion where we have sects.”

“You can use Photoshop, you can use After Effects and green screens and CGI and you can farm things out to India, but you cannot use this software on your computer at home,” he continued. “Even if you’ve learned the whole process. The effects in the movie took me months to do, and people tell me it’s lazy and I’m like, ‘I was up every freaking night until four in the morning working on this by myself. It was not lazy. I absolutely could have asked someone else to do this for me, but I wanted to do it myself because I wanted to learn it myself. I know how film works, from how negative emulsion works to this. And I think that’s what a filmmaker should do. I’m fascinated by film, I’m fascinated by all of this stuff, and the fact that people are mad about it is really confusing to me.”

Rohal never expected a movie called “Fuck My Son!” would give him so many P.R. headaches, but he also never expected the experience to be so life affirming. The film was born out of his commitment to free artistic expression, a tribute to a comic artist who spent his career battling mobs of people trying to tell him what he could and couldn’t say. It feels like destiny that Rohal ended up fending off a mob of his own, but he still doesn’t have any regrets about making his little movie about a twisted mom who just wants someone to fuck her hideous son.

“Making ‘Fuck My Son!,’ as crazy as that sounds, has been the biggest thing in my life that helped me figure out what’s important to me,” he said. “And I know that’s crazy, and you won’t see that in the movie, but following certain instincts and staying away from other things that would have prevented the movie from being what it is, and just allowing it to be itself, has really been life changing for me. And I credit that to the creative freedom that I had, and there’s an aspect of AI that fits into that that’s on the positive side of it. So if people want to assassinate me or drone bomb me for that, so be it.”

Announced theatrical engagements for “Fuck My Son!” can be found below, with starred dates indicating 35mm screenings.

10/16-23 – New York, NY – IFC Center

10/23-30 – Los Angeles, CA – Alamo Drafthouse Los Angeles

10/31 – 11/04 – Austin, TX – Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar

10/31 – 11/01 – Brooklyn, NY – Nitehawk Cinema – Williamsburg*

11/05-08 – San Francisco, CA – Alamo Drafthouse New Mission* 

11/14-15 – Chicago, IL – Music Box Theatre*

11/28-29 – Dallas, TX – Texas Theatre* 

12/05-06 – Seattle, WA – Grand Illusion Cinema at SIFF Film Center* 

12/19 – Toronto, ON – Revue Cinema

12/26-27 – Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA

01/02-03/26 – Omaha, NE – Film Streams’ Dundee Theater*  

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Renate Reinsve & Elle Fanning on 'Sentimental Value' — NYFF Interview
TV & Streaming

Renate Reinsve & Elle Fanning on ‘Sentimental Value’ — NYFF Interview

by jummy84
written by jummy84

When Charli xcx coined “Joachim Trier Summer” earlier this year, who knew that that would soon turn into “Joachim Trier Fall,” and now, “Joachim Trier Awards Season.”

His latest, “Sentimental Value,” debuted at the 63rd New York Film Festival on September 30, sending his Cannes Grand Prix winner into even further awards chatter. His follow-up to “The Worst Person in the World,” the film centers on two daughters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) reuniting with their estranged filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgård) after their mother dies, and as he prepares for his next project.

“This film somehow is a continuation of previous work, but it’s also something new,” Trier told IndieWire on the red carpet at Alice Tully Hall. “Very often, we’ve focused on singular characters in our films, and this is really like an ensemble piece. It’s more of a polyphonic story of family and trying to find the silences in between, by changing point of view, changing perspective throughout.”

(Left to right): Nell Campbell, Barry Bostwick, and Patricia Quinn from 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show'

“Worst Person” star Reinsve plays Nora, an actress best known for her stage work. When her father, Gustav, hopes to cast her in his comeback film, she at first turns down the script. Enter Rachel Kemp, an American actress played by Elle Fanning. After being brought to tears by one of the director’s previous films, she meets Gustav and ends up taking the role, being thrown full throttle into the complicated dynamics of a family in distress. As for Reinsve, this project was already in talks as she and Trier were filming their last, “The Worst Person in the World.” This film marks their third collaboration together, including her one-line role in 2011’s “Oslo, August 31st,” her film debut.

“It was actually during that shoot [on ‘Worst Person’] we felt that artistic connection on set, and that was very naive and open,” Reinsve said. “We started talking about different traits of a character, like what if this and that, but there wasn’t room for it in that movie.”

“Opening that script [for ‘Sentimental Value’] was so scary,” she continued. “He knows me much better now, both as a person and an actor, so I was very curious about how he wanted to challenge me this time. It was really exciting to read the role with so much emotional weight and playing around with what she knew about herself and what she didn’t know about herself. We have so much trust now. It is so much fun, even though it’s heavier.”

SENTIMENTAL VALUE, (aka AFFEKSJONSVERDI), from left: Stellan Skarsgard, Elle Fanning, 2025. ph: Kasper Tuxen /© Neon / Courtesy Everett Collection
‘Sentimental Value’Courtesy Everett Collection

Trier worked with many previous collaborators on this film, including best friend and co-writer Eskil Vogt. But Golden Globe nominee Fanning was brand new to the mix. “I learned so much,” she said of working with the director.

“I feel like I’m spoiled now being on his film set, because it’s quite a beautiful thing,” Fanning continued. “He really sees you, and he also knows what he wants. He really allows you to feel free and vulnerable, and he pulls these things out of you that have been dormant inside or are kind of subconscious. Then you’re in the moment, and he’s right next to the camera as well while you’re filming. He’s right there watching you in real time; he sees it all. He’s not afraid of silence. That’s something I really learned. It’s a beautiful thing that you see in the film.”

Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays Reinsve’s sister in the film, also was overjoyed to be working with Trier as well. “Tenderness is cool,” she said when asked what she learned from him. “The best way to approach something is with tenderness and love.”

Trier was also beaming as I brought up the fact that Norway chose the film as its submission for Best International Feature Film at next year’s Oscars. “It’s out of my control, but I’m grateful to be chosen by the Norwegian Film Institute.”

“As an actor, it’s important to keep a distance with bad reviews and good reviews; it can be scary,” Reinsve said of the film’s rapturous reception out of Cannes. “We were really scared going to Cannes with this movie. I was so relieved and so happy. It’s been really great. You make a movie to find a collective in some things you feel that are personal to yourself, and then you have people respond to that in their way, and have conversations [where] you learn even more about those feelings.”

SENTIMENTAL VALUE, (aka AFFEKSJONSVERDI), from left: Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve, 2025. ph: Kasper Tuxen /© Neon / Courtesy Everett Collection
‘Sentimental Value’Courtesy Everett Collection

She also just came off shooting “The Backrooms,” with Kane Parsons as the youngest director A24 has ever worked with. The viral YouTube horror series has amassed nearly 200 million views since its 2022 debut, and before getting a feature film greenlight. “He was so impressive,” Reinsve said.

“He turned 20 during the shoot. He was very sure of what he wanted, and I love that he hasn’t really watched that many movies. His references are totally different, so it was very exciting to work with someone who had just these ideas [where I didn’t know the references].”

As for Fanning, it was announced last month that she will star alongside Nicole Kidman in a legal thriller series from A24 titled “Discretion.” The project marks their third collaboration, following Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” in 2017 and the upcoming Apple TV+ show “Margo’s Got Money Troubles.”

“Oh my God, I love Nicole to death,” she said. “I love her. We’ve worked three times now in more of an ensemble capacity, and we are friends, and we’ve gotten very close, but now we get to go toe to toe in this one [that was just announced]. It’s a real two-hander, this show.”

“[It was] extremely good,” Skarsgård also told IndieWire of working with Trier. “He sits right beside the camera, and he watches the detail in your performance. He’s after what happens inside the human being, no matter what you say, and that is what I am, too, doing in my acting. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.”

Neon will release “Sentimental Value” in select theaters on Friday, November 7. Check out the trailer here.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Noah Baumbach and Adam Sandler at the Venice Film Festival for the world premiere of their movie Jay Kelly
TV & Streaming

Deadline interview with Noah Baumbach and Adam Sandler On ‘Jay Kelly’

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Although Adam Sandler has forever been known as a comedic force in movies, most recently in the long-awaited Netflix sequel to Happy Gilmore, his performances in such films as Hustle, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, Noah Baumbach‘s The Meyerowitz Stories and the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems have proven this is a star with serious dramatic acting chops. Now he is getting major Oscar buzz (again) for his role as Ron, the ever-loyal but conflicted manager to George Clooney‘s major movie star going through an existential crisis of identity in Jay Kelly. It has brought Sandler critical raves (and so has the film for Baumbach who directed it) after its Venice and Telluride launches, and now tonight premieres at the New York Film Festival.

While in Telluride I sat down with Sandler and Baumbach to talk about their second teaming together and just what made Sandler perfect for this role.

DEADLINE: So after working with Adam in The Meyerowitz Stories what inspired this reunion on Jay Kelly?

NOAH BAUMBACH: Emily [Mortimer] and I were writing the character, I wanted it to be Adam, because, you know, I’d gotten to know Adam, and we’re very close, and our families are claiming we’re in love.

ADAM SANDLER: Yeah.

BAUMBACH: Adam has such generosity of spirit and such love and such loyalty to the people he works with, you know, the way he takes care of his family, it’s just really remarkable to me. I think we share that, this love of life and movies and having the people you love to be there in the movie, because you love your movie, and you want to love the people in them and I always use my friends, either depending on their abilities or the roles, I use people in my movies who I’ve known my whole life, or you know, I bring my own family into it. But I felt like with Ron, it would be a way for Adam to sort of play something that I feel is actually quite close to him, but in a character that actually isn’t that close to him. Adam obviously, lives Jay Kelly’s life in reality.

SANDLER: At times.

BAUMBACH: I mean in terms of, like, being a worldwide movie star, and so you know, it’s something exciting to me that he would be playing something that was kind of close to him, but in disguise in a way.

DEADLINE: Why did you decide to do this very industry showbiz centric story now?

BAUMBACH: It uses the movie business, the sort of notion of the movie star and all the people around them. All of that’s compelling and fun, and it’s a world I know really well. Making a movie about an actor is making a movie about persona and performance and identity and choices and all the things that are inherent in that. In a way I feel like it’s one of the most universal stories I’ve told, even though it actually takes place in a kind of somewhat rarified world, but it’s rarified only in terms of where Jay Kelly exists in the culture. I mean, as we actually discover Jay Kelly was a kid from Kentucky with no money whose dad worked for the John Deere corporation. And you see Ron is dealing with all the sort of ordinary work-life questions that could be in any profession, right?…The story of success is the same story as the story of failure. It’s like it’s a barrier between you and who you might actually be, and in the case of a movie star, it’s such a specific thing. It’s like his name means something different than what his name meant when he was young. So, it’s like he lost his name, and I think that’s such an interesting way to explore how we all sort of deal with this gap between who we present ourselves as, and who we might actually be, and as we all get older we’re all hopefully getting closer to ourselves.

DEADLINE: Adam it looks like you just slipped into this role, like you knew this guy. So, what do you base it on, besides their script?

SANDLER: I base it on conversations with Noah and talking about my own teams, my own people that I’ve seen throughout the years, Noah’s people that he’s seen throughout the years and just that sense of a person who’s so dedicated to one person or all his clients and how much damage that can cause at home, just because of the amount of time that takes to be dedicated to someone, and the arts. 3AM in the morning, things can come to that person’s mind that is very important to them, and you have to be there for them. So, yeah, it’s about kind of giving away any privacy and just being okay with that, and I thought that was fun to be a man like that, to be a guy that said, ‘hey, even though it pains me right now, you guys know the drill. This guy comes first.

BAUMBACH: It’s also like, to be good at your job…But to be good at your job in that instance means that you’re dedicating yourself and your time and your life, If you’re younger and you love it you’re happy to devote all day long to it, but then, as you start to have a life and a family, but you’re still doing it….You know, when I was starting, I would edit seven days a week. I still love editing as much as I ever did, but you know, I want a weekend with my family, and I want to knock off at six and go have dinner with the kids and do all that. Liz (Laura Dern’s publicist character) even says it to Ron. ‘In the beginning, it was fun. You know, he was our baby, and we take care of him, but now we have real babies’.

SANDLER: It’s a heartbreaking scene on the tennis court, just how much my daughter needs me there, how important it is, and just it’s out of my control. Something’s going on with the man I’m dedicated to, and I’m going to Europe with him, and you can’t talk me out of it, because I know what’s best.

BAUMBACH: Ron is like Jay’s shadow. I mean, the opening of the movie, when, you know, we make our way through the set, and Jay actually is a shadow when we first see him in the tent, and Ron and the shadow move together and then kind of converge. It was sort of a way to tell that story right off the bat… Jay’s having a sort of existential dark night of the soul, and Ron’s having the more ordinary version of ‘I’m away from my family. I’m trying to do a good job at work. I’m also trying to be a good parent, and how do I do this? And this is what I chose, or I need to re-choose this or not’.

DEADLINE: This wouldn’t have worked if we didn’t believe the relationship between Ron and Jay. Adam, you and George Clooney go back decades, don’t you?

SANDLER: Yes. We knew each other, George and I were always nice to each other, but we spent a lot of time on and off the set, and I’ll tell you what, no one was pulling for me like George every scene. Every scene, he was so excited about the stuff we’d do together and so excited…he was so quick to, on hearing cut, compliment what I did, and I would say, ‘well, do you just know how great you are and how easy it is to do this with you?’ And he doesn’t like compliments. He’s just like, ‘no, no, no, no, no, it’s okay, thank you, but what you’re doing’. He’s such a nice, giving actor, and we did have a nice time on set. When Noah was setting up a shot, we’d sit with each other, George and I, and just talk and get close and run scenes or just talk about life and talk about our families, and we’re very kind to each other.

George Clooney as Jay Kelly and Adam Sandler as Ron Sukenick in 'Jay Kelly'

George Clooney as Jay Kelly and Adam Sandler as Ron Sukenick in ‘Jay Kelly’

Peter Mountain/Netflix

DEADLINE: You’re running away with the reviews in this, if you read them.

SANDLER: Just so you know, I don’t read them, but I’ll take it. Thank you.

DEADLINE: There’s major awards buzz around your performance. How does that feel?

SANDLER: It’s really nice, man. I get to talk about it…I don’t know what a right answer to that is, you know, but it’s just all exciting. I do have to say, whatever compliment comes my way goes back to my man Noah. I’m proud to be this man but I know it came from Noah, and I’m really thankful that he gave me this part that had so many different things to do and ways to think.

DEADLINE: And it’s not the first time. Obviously, Uncut Gems and Punch-Drunk Love put you in the conversation, and on and on.

SANDLER: Man, I’m so happy. Noah called me, it was probably two years ago, and said he has an idea, and he wants to include me, and so, right away, you say, well, that’s big, because Noah’s writing, and how serious and how hard he works, you know there’s going to be something there that, as an actor, you say, ‘okay, man, this is the big time’, and you don’t want to waste a word of it. Then I got to read it, and then I said, ‘okay, this is something that I will never forget. I’m diving in deep and trying to be this guy, and I’m going to love being this guy’, and you don’t think of the other stuff. Others have brought stuff up while we were shooting, to me, and I would say, ‘I don’t think I want to talk about anything but how great this movie could be’, and so, that’s where you land. I just love Noah. I know that everything I did in this movie is where he led me. When I make my movies, I work hard on them, and I feel the pride in everybody’s performance, and I have the same feeling about this movie. I know I follow what Noah told me to do, and I would always be happy when Noah would say we got it. On a particular take, I’d say, ‘all right, if Noah’s happy, then we’re doing something right’.

Jay Kelly opens in select theatres November 14 and begins streaming on Netflix December 5.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Madonna uses first podcast interview to declare she owes career to spirituality
Celebrity News

Madonna uses first podcast interview to declare she owes career to spirituality

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Madonna has used her first podcast interview to declare said she owes her decades-long career to her spiritual practice.

Madonna has used her first podcast interview to declare she owes her decades-long career to her spiritual practice

The 67-year-old singer will appear on a new episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty on Monday (29.09.25), where she speaks candidly with podcast host Jay Shetty about the role spirituality has played in her life.

The discussion ranges from forgiveness and success to the influence of Kabbalah, which Madonna first encountered in 1996 shortly before the birth of her daughter Lourdes Leon.

An extract from the chat obtained by People reveals Madonna tells Jay: “You need to be spiritual to be successful. Success is having a spiritual life, period. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have one.”

The seven-time Grammy award winner, known for her outspoken advocacy on human rights, added: “What have I done for others? That’s really the only way you can be successful in life. It’s like the greatest amount of light is where there’s darkness and you can reveal the most amount of light. When you’re in a dark room, you turn on the light. When you’re in a room that’s already light, what do you, there’s no, um, effort made. So should we look for darkness?”

She continued: “My soul’s purpose is to reveal light in the world through whatever I do. I want it all, but I want it for the sake of sharing, not to keep it for myself.”

The podcast also features Eitan Yardeni, Madonna’s longtime Kabbalah teacher.

The pair recently launched a new course titled The Mystical Studies of the Zohar.

Speaking to Jay, Madonna admitted she had once been vulnerable to outside judgment.

She added: “I was once a slave or victim of other people’s opinions of me.

“I don’t fit in, and not fitting in is what saves you.”

Reflecting on her career highs and lows, she insisted spirituality has provided the foundation for her resilience.

Madonna said: “Spiritual wisdom is not helpful when everything’s going your way. It’s helpful when you’re challenged and when you’re happy.

“It’s helpful to remember that at any given time, in any moment, it could be gone. So don’t take it for granted. Have humility.

“Radical acceptance is just accepting that what is happening to you is meant to happen to you – and that you’re going to be okay.”




0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
LaKeith Stanfield Details Major Label Debut, "Fast Life": Interview
Music

LaKeith Stanfield Details Major Label Debut, “Fast Life”: Interview

by jummy84
written by jummy84

LaKeith Stanfield is returning to his music roots with the release of his new single, “Fast Life,” featuring Kid Cudi. The record and accompanying video mark his official Def Jam debut and pave the way for his long-awaited new album (slated to be “coming soon”).

Of the record, Stanfield told VIBE, “I originally wrote and recorded this song about 7 years ago. My life was turbulent, exciting, and sad. This song explores that feeling in my journey.”

“Fast Life” is somewhat of an introspective look into his life when “things started popping off” for Stanfield. He explained, “It was just like a barrage of different things coming from different directions [and] I didn’t really know how to deal with it. It was a lot of money, a lot of fame, a lot of accolades coming at once. I went from anonymity to n****s running up on me, like, ‘What’s up, Get Out?’”

The adjustment ultimately ended with a stint in rehab, and now, Stanfield feels the journey has been “surreal” considering he’s been able to “turn that negativity into something positive.” The latter is what he intends to do with his music, noting, “I want to alchemize and make the negative stuff, give birth to something a little bit more positive.”

Courtesy of Def Jam

During a private screening back in August, the acclaimed actor revealed that music was actually his first love. “I’ve been doing it since I was 11. I’ve always loved music,” he explained before confessing that when he’s traveling, filming, or in the in-between, he’s always working on his music.

Stanfield teased, “I rap, I sing, I scream until I don’t have a voice,” and with “Fast Life,” he feels, “It’s time to share, it’s time to let it out.”

Described as “hypnotic as it is hedonistic,” the visual is a short film directed by Jeymes Samuel (The Harder They Fall, The Book of Clarence) with narration by Taraji P. Henson and cameos from Madeline Brewer, John Boyega, David Oyelowo, Jimmy Akingbola, and Stanfield’s wife, Kasmere.

On his synergy with Samuel, Stanfield labeled it “weird in a beautiful way.”

He shared, “[He] just has a great imagination. And he was just like, ‘How do we take it to the next level? How do we lather it in some elements of creepiness, and embed some deeper meaning?’ I had a really great time when I’m working on ‘The Harder They Fall,’ ‘The Book of Clarence.’ So I just asked him would he come on to this, and he was like, ‘Yeah.’ So, we just ran with it.”

LaKeith Stanfield Jeymes Samuel

Derek White/Getty Images

Stanfield also spoke about his friendship with Cudi and how the rapper ended up on the record. He considered Cudi to be a “great man and gracious artist,” adding, “He and I both speak out hearts — so I approached him with the record when revisiting it for official release. I’m grateful he joined me.”

He later confessed that Cudi had a “magnetism toward [‘Fast Life’]” and joked that he “did that verse in five [minutes].” Stanfield quipped, “I’ve never seen no s**t like that in my life […] He just hummed three different tunes. And he was like, ‘Yeah, all right, cool. You know I’m going to do this quick, right?’ And in five minutes, he was done […] I didn’t believe it at first. Then, I sat with it, and it’s one of the most beautiful aspects of the album now.”

This first iteration of his music is “all about getting through the hard s**t,” with Stanfield explaining: “When you can reflect, there’s a certain beauty to the struggle, and I talk about that in this first installation. As I move forward, I just grow and I progress […] And you coming with me on the journey because we all live a fast life. This s**t’s short.”

The full 18-minute visual will be out very soon, but for now, the four-minute teaser can be viewed above.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Mariah Carey 'Flowers' Interview With SZA: Watch
Music

Mariah Carey ‘Flowers’ Interview With SZA: Watch

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Mariah Carey got her Flowers on Wednesday: She appeared on Apple Music’s Flowers as the series’ first guest, where she was interviewed by SZA for the livestreamed event.

The pair were in the studio the night before, SZA revealed during their conversation, where they listened to Carey’s new album and also discussed Carey’s secret “grunge” album she recorded back in the late Nineties, Someone’s Ugly Daughter, which she recorded under the name Chick and recorded as she was making 1995’s Daydream.

As for her new material, Carey revealed her favorite song from the new effort is the title track from Here for It All. “That’s my favorite, and that’s why I named it Here for It All ‘cause I didn’t want people to pass it by,” Carey said. “Because I was going to put it as the end song, and then I did, just to make sure people heard it.” Later, the played a snippet of the track, with SZA commenting about the gospel breakdown in it.

They also discussed Carey’s faith and the track “Jesus I Do,” which features the Clark Sisters, who Carey said she had been “worshipping for years and years.”

SZA asked about Carey’s note choices, which Carey said comes as she’s writing. “It’s interesting, because a lot of it’s born when I’m writing the song, you know. And there’s a melody that is just come to me,” she said. “And it stays in the song and it, you know, when the song becomes whatever it’s going to become, that’s it.”

As for her ad-libs, she added: “I don’t know that I think about it. It’s just something that comes to me during the the moment of creating the song. So it’s all one thing is what I was trying to say before. … But, yeah, it’s all one moment for me most of the time.”

At one point, SZA asked Carey what “the most important thing that your mother taught you about life and about music and singing in general?” Carey’s mother Patricia was an opera singer and vocal coach. Patricia died in August 2024, the same day Carey’s estranged sister, Alison, died. “We had a very interesting relationship, and then she just passed away last year,” Carey said of her mother.

Trending Stories

“I think one of the main things that she said, the one thing she said to me, and it was clear, and it was right there, she said, ‘Don’t say if I make it, say when I make it,” she continued, which brought tears to her eyes.

The full taped livestream is currently available to Apple Music subscribers. Carey’s 16th studio album, Here for It All, arrives on Friday.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
'The Lowdown' Sterlin Harjo Showrunner Interview
TV & Streaming

‘The Lowdown’ Sterlin Harjo Showrunner Interview

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Sterlin Harjo’s first series, “Reservation Dogs,” does a lot of playing around with genre. It opens with an elevated (gas station) heist (for flamin’ flamers chips), after all. There are ghosts and spirits, horror episodes, trips back into the ‘70s, the odd touch of a Western. In his second show, FX’s “The Lowdown,” Harjo and his team are still delightfully elastic when it comes to moving from comedy to thriller to character drama and back again — sometimes within the same scene.

But “The Lowdown” unambiguously owes much more to film noir than any other genre. You need look no further than the fact that, like all great noir protagonists, Ethan Hawke’s Lee Raybon keeps getting the shit beat out of him. 

Jessica Chastain in 'The Savant,' shown sitting in an office chair, casually holding a cell phone, wearing gray sweats and black glasses

Raybon is the owner of a Tulsa secondhand book store by day, self-appointed “truthstorian” by night, who investigates the hypocrisies and hidden secrets of Oklahoma’s elite and exposes them in local media. That means a lot of driving around in his beat-up van and sticking his nose in the business of people who would really just like to do their Late Stage Capitalism in private. The pilot episode kicks off with a closeted member of the Washberg family, Dale (Tim Blake Nelson), appearing to commit suicide after Lee’s latest exposé (excuse me, long-form magazine article). It ends with a couple of skinheads kidnapping Lee and stuffing him in the back of their sedan. 

“You gotta get beat up, and Ethan’s really good at it,” Harjo told IndieWire on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast. “He’s somehow managed to balance having this superstar career, basically, with also an independent career and perspective as well. He’s never really lost himself, you know? It doesn’t feel like you can’t reach out and touch Ethan Hawke, and that’s what you need in a noir. You know? They have to represent us.” 

There’s a specific flavor of everyman representation that asserts itself in a noir story. The characters are up against it. There’s something rotten in the state of the world, and the environment is a bewildering maze of violence and corruption — the “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” effect, if you will. But damn it, a noir hero still cares. In a deeply sardonic and gallows-humor way, a lot of the time, sure, but they care. Hawke’s not-so-silver-tongued independent journalist fits squarely into that tradition, and into Harjo’s interests as a storyteller.  

FX's The Lowdown -- "The Devil's Mama" Episode 2 -- Pictured: (l-r) Kyle MacLachlan as Donald Washberg, Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon. CR: Shane Brown/FX
‘The Lowdown’Shane Brown/FX

“A great noir protagonist is sort of a good underdog,” Harjo told IndieWire on an upcoming episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast. “The world is against him, and I love that. The story’s kind of about discovering who they are when faced with insurmountable danger and pressure, and there’s something about that that I like. It’s just such a dramatic way to place a character, and the stakes are high, but it also just feels driven by truth and grit and reality.” 

“The Lowdown” earns grit points simply by having Lee be someone who, when he gets another shiner, is still recovering from his first. Episode 2, “The Devil’s Mama”, which aired alongside the pilot, opens with Lee trying to cover the blood and bruises left by the skinheads via a $1,000 bribe and a YouTube makeup tutorial. As opposed to a genius or gentleman detective, the more mundane and everyday the struggle Harjo and his writers could put Lee through, the better. 

“[Noir protagonists] are very human, but we also have to believe that, given the opportunity, that we could go into the fire as well. And I think there’s something about it that just touches the human experience,” Harjo said. “It’s like, why do zombie movies work? There’s something about it, some fear there that it represents for all of us.” 

FX's The Lowdown -- "Pilot" Episode 1 -- Pictured: Ethan Hawke as Lee Raybon. CR: Shane Brown/FX
‘The Lowdown’Shane Brown/FX

Not so unlike a horde of zombies, once a noir character uncovers a conspiracy and stumbles upon danger, it just keeps spreading, infecting everything they touch. “One character opens something up and then the noir, the world, sort of spreads, right? That’s essentially what happens to Lee in the show, I think,” Harjo said. 

If any burgeoning FX truthstorians are looking for noir keys to the Washberg mystery Lee is chasing within “The Lowdown,” alas, there aren’t any smoking guns or Maltese Falcons. However, one noir that Harjo was inspired by was the 1949 Robert Wise boxing noir, “The Set-Up.” In it, Robert Ryan plays an aging fighter who is asked to take a dive against an up-and-comer backed by the mob. 

“I showed ‘The Set-Up’ to the writers before we started writing the show, because the character [in the film] basically can’t get out of his own way,” Harjo said. “Boxing is his life, and it’s who he is. He’s got this girlfriend that he could run off and get married and whatever, but he just won’t. The whole time, you’re like, ‘What are you doing?!’” 

FX's The Lowdown -- "The Devil's Mama" Episode 2 -- Pictured: Michael "Killer Mike" Render as Cyrus Arnold. CR: Shane Brown/FX
‘The Lowdown’ Shane Brown/FX

“What are you doing?!” is a question that can be continually asked of Lee throughout “The Lowdown,” too. The answer is, ultimately, being true to himself. The shit-kickings and the setbacks (and set-ups) are the heightened, heroic proof of that. In using the language of film noir, Harjo and Hawke get to do a kind of character work that other kinds of stories simply don’t allow. 

“I found that I just loved the parameters of genre, how much you could say within those parameters, you know? You can actually say more than just having the characters talk about how they feel,” he added.

The first two episodes of “The Lowdown” are available to stream on Hulu.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Kamala Harris, In Rachel Maddow Interview, Hails Jimmy Kimmel's Return
TV & Streaming

Kamala Harris, In Rachel Maddow Interview, Hails Jimmy Kimmel’s Return

by jummy84
written by jummy84

Kamala Harris, in her first news interview since leaving office, hailed ABC’s decision to return Jimmy Kimmel to the air.

Harris told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, “Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks as it relates to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, it moved a decision in the right direction.”

Harris last week called out companies for caving to the Trump administration.

She wrote on social media, “What we are witnessing is an outright abuse of power,” Harris posted. “This administration is attacking critics and using fear as a weapon to silence anyone who would speak out. Media corporations — from television networks to newspapers — are capitulating to these threats. We cannot dare to be silent or complacent in the face of this frontal assault on free speech.”

Harris sat down with Maddow in studio as the kickoff for her book tour for 107 Days, her account of her truncated presidential campaign last year.

In the interview, Maddow called Harris the “patron saint of ‘I told you so, in terms of people understanding the warnings and predictions about what Trump would be like.” Maddow noted that Harris wrote in the book, “I predicted all of that. I warned of it. What I didn’t predict is the capitulation, the billionaires lining up to grovel, the big media companies, universities, so many major law firms.”

Harris told Maddow, “I always believed that is push came to shove, these titans of industry would be guardrails for our democracy, for the importance of sustaining democratic institutions. And one by one by one, they have been silent. They have been — I use the word feckless. It’s not like they’re going to lose their yacht or their house in the Hamptons.”

The Walt Disney Co. announced earlier that Kimmel would return to the schedule on Tuesday. The network said last week that it was pulling his late-night show indefinitely, amid the furor over a remark he made about MAGA’s effort to define the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The network’s announcement came after a warning from the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, and a statement from station group Nexstar, which said that it was pulling the show from its ABC affiliates.

Harris referred to Donald Trump as a “tyrant,” and talked not only about the administration’s pressure on Disney over Kimmel, but the president’s efforts to install loyalists as U.S. attorneys to prosecute his opponents.

“Perhaps it is because they want to please him and nominate him for a Nobel Prize,” Harris said of corporate leaders. “Perhaps it’s because they want a merger approved, or they want to avoid an investigation, but at some point they’ve got to stand up for the sake of the people who rely on all of these institutions to have integrity, and to at some point be the guardrails against a tyrant who is using the federal government to execute his whim and fancy because of a fragile ego.”

Harris’ book already has generated headlines for what she wrote about Joe Biden‘s decision to run for reelection and stay in the presidential race until July, 2024. In an excerpt that ran in The Atlantic earlier the month, Harris wrote, “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

On Maddow’s show, Harris said, “I realized that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on. And so when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything I am talking about myself. There was so much, as we know, at stake. As I write, where my head was at the time is that … it would come off as completely self serving.”

Maddow asked whether she meant telling Biden that it was not a good idea for him to run again.

“Or even if he should question if it is a good idea,” Harris said.

Maddow also asked Harris if she would consider running in 2028, but she didn’t give away much in terms of her future plans.

“That’s not my focus right now. That’s not my focus, at all,” Harris said. “It really isn’t.”

The book, Maddow said, is surprisingly candid. She referenced Harris’ revelations of text messages she got from other top Democrats after Biden dropped out and she got into the presidential race. Gavin Newsom wrote, “Hiking. Will call back.” “He never did,” Harris wrote.

“Gavin has a great sense of humor, so he is going to be fine,” Harris told Maddow. The former vice president said that Newsom’s redistricting effort, which will be on California’s November ballot, is “absolutely the right way to go.”

The measure is a response to Texas’ move to draw new district boundaries in order to make it more probable that Republicans will pick up five additional seats in next year’s midterm elections. Opponents of California’s Proposition 50 say that the way to respond should not be to suspend California’s redistricting commission, set up to try to take politics out of the process.

Harris disagreed.

“Part of what we have got to challenge ourselves to accept is that we tend to play by the rules. But this is a moment where you have got to fire with fire,” she said.

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts