Ethan Alter

Writer

[ethanalter]

Damian Lewis and Paul Giamatti Give Us 2 Reasons to Watch 'Billions'

There are already two great reasons to watch Billions — specifically the leading men, Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis. But a new teaser trailer for the series, which will premiere on Showtime in early 2016, gives us a billion more reasons to be excited for this financial world drama. Those reasons include timely subject matter, beautiful New York cinematography, and glimpses at a supporting cast that includes Malin Akerman and Maggie Siff. Oh yeah, and it also boasts one of the best lines of dialogue we’ve heard all year. Toward the end of the trailer, Lewis says, “What’s the point of having f–k you money if you never say ‘F–k you’?” (Did we mention that the trailer is most definitely NSFW?)

Billions stars Giamatti as an ambitious U.S. Attorney who makes it his personal mission to bring down Lewis’s business magnate, Bobby Axelrod. It’s an admirable goal, but also a foolhardy one as Axelrod has friends in high places and a general disregard for government. If a mere minute of watching these two Emmy-winning acting titans go toe-to-toe is this much fun, just imagine how great 12 one-hour episodes will be.  

Billions will premiere on Showtime in early 2016.    

[ethanalter]

'Scream': The EPs Talk Ghostface and Debates With MTV Over Body Counts

Released in 1996, the original Scream launched a groundbreaking horror franchise and countless imitators. Now, MTV is hoping to turn the volume on the Scream brand back up to 11 with a television reboot, in which a whole new generation of absurdly attractive, painfully self-referential high school students find themselves targeted by a knife-wielding, mask-wearing killer named Ghostface. Like the film, the series commences with the death of a popular girl played by a recognizable actress: in this case, Bella Thorne’s Nina Patterson. That murder spurs the citizens of the small town of Lakewood to confront a troubled past. Yahoo TV spoke with Scream’s executive producers Jill Blotevogel and Jaime Paglia about the new Ghostface, the show’s body count, and what this version of Scream owes to Friday Night Lights and Twin Peaks.

How did you approach the challenge of adapting a franchise as recognizable as Scream for television? Jill Blotevogel: It had been in development for several years by the time I came to it, and they’d gone down a lot of different roads: a supernatural road and a traditional road. What I tried to do was get back to what Scream was all about and find how to do that for TV. The thing you have to do is stretch it out a little bit. Let you get to know these characters in a way you’d never have time to in a feature. It’s also about finding a way to take the technology seen in the movie and say “What’s the 2015 version of that phone ringing?”

The show is taking Friday Night Lights — a world you recognize and characters that you love — and bringing out the Scream of it. Letting someone die, and letting that trickle down to affect the characters. The trick is finding that balance where you’ve killed someone, but the kids are still going to prom. The death of Nina Patterson in the pilot plays like the murder of Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. It permeates everything that comes after that. 

Related: Summer TV Preview: 21 New Shows

Jaime Paglia: We knew that right out of the gate we wanted to be self-referential and let the audience know we were going to take them for a different ride with the show. It keeps the tone of Scream, addresses what certain expectations are, and acknowledges that we know what we’re up against.

One of the main things you’re up against, obviously, is creating a new version of Ghostface. How did you settle on the design we see in the series? Blotevogel: He’s one of the most iconic figures in modern horror, as is the mask. But once [the Scream spoof] Scary Movie did the dope smoking Ghostface mask, the drunken Ghostface mask, and the post-sex Ghostface mask, it became hard to get back to the primal fear you had of it in the original movie. We found a way to do a new version of it that’s grounded in the story of our world. It plays in a creepy grounded way, but still has a great shock value.

Paglia: It also becomes a thematic element for us in our current day story — the whole idea of the masks we wear in social media and who we are online versus who we are in reality. 

The movies always had a high body count; were you nervous about not having enough characters left over by the finale? Paglia: Early on, we had conversations with the network and the studio about how many people we could kill in Season 1. There were serious debates about it. We eventually wound up in a place where you feel that [every death is] earned, and they have the most impact for the characters and the audience. We’re not just dropping a body every week because we can. 

Blotevogel: MTV is open to pushing some boundaries. I worked on a show called Harper’s Island where we killed someone every episode, and it’s amazing what you can do with editing and with music and sound. It’s definitely going to be about trying to create watercooler-worthy moments and scares. But I feel like we get more feedback on the things that the U.S. has an issue with, which are sexuality and profanity. We get more policing on those than we do with gore and murder. 

Will the first season tell a complete story or are you laying the foundation for a longer mystery? Blotevogel: We’re trying to do both. We want Season 1 to be Chapter 1, but also have a sense of resolution in the end. We’re doing a multi-season mystery, so we’re going to be laying out a lot of side story and have the bigger revelation of “Who is behind it all” as our “You’ve got to watch the whole thing” answer.

Many of the teenagers in this Scream wouldn’t have even been born when the first movie came out. How did they react to watching the film and all the ‘90s flourishes? Blotevogel: Some of the actors watched the original one and were like, “Phones used to have cords? What the hell!” [Laughs.] And in writing the series, we worried if a lot of the pop culture references might be outdated, even though we consider them classics. Like, we figured that everyone’s seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and Aliens. I had written an Aliens joke for John Karna’s character Noah, and when I got to set I walked into his trailer and he and some other actors were watching Aliens [for the first time]! He said, “I know I should know this.” Meanwhile, I was thinking, “These kids are watching Aliens for the first time in their trailer. You guys should be seeing this on the big screen!”  

Scream premieres June 30 at 10 p.m. on MTV.

[ethanalter]

Dwayne Johnson vows that DC's 'Black Adam' is coming soon

Comic book fans have been waiting almost 10 years to see Dwayne Johnson suit up as DC Universe anti-hero Black Adam. According to the man himself, they’re gonna have to wait a little bit longer. Speaking with Yahoo Entertainment recently, the star of the new action blockbuster Rampage revealed that production on the Black Adam feature likely wouldn’t start for another year. “The script came in, it’s great, we’re working on it,” Johnson teased. “If things come together in the way we anticipate them coming together, that feels like a 2019 movie.” (Watch the clip above.)

Blame the delay, in part, on Marvel Studios. Since launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008’s Iron Man, that company has provided the model for how to construct a living, breathing, and always-evolving galaxy for its countless costumed-clad avengers. In contrast, their distinguished competition at DC has endured a number of false starts and dead ends, with a few hits (Wonder Woman) and several more misses (Green Lantern, Justice League). “Marvel is doing such an incredible job of universe building… and DC is doing a great job finding the footing and tone of their movies,” Johnson said, diplomatically.

The success of Black Adam in particular hinges on finding the right tone. Debuting in 1945 as a nemesis for Captain Marvel a.k.a. Shazam, the super-strong, super-fast and super-smart villain has also, at times, been an ally with an attitude. “It’s this phenomenal opportunity for us to nail the tone and make sure he’s bad-ass,” Johnson says of how he hopes to represent Black Adam onscreen. “Also we have intrinsic DNA tied to a lot of other properties in DC.”

The most obvious tie, of course, is to Shazam, who is being played by a bulked-up Zachary Levi in a currently-filming adventure set for release on April 5, 2019. The original plan was for Black Adam to soar onscreen in that movie, but his cameo wound up getting dropped. “[Johnson] has been cast as Black Adam, but he’s not going to be featured in this film,” Shazam director David F. Sandberg recently told Film Riot. “There have been variations of the script… but now this is about Shazam.”

If Shazam flies high at the box office in 2019, Johnson may finally get a chance to put on Black Adam’s black costume.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

Accio ‘Harry Potter’ covers: See the dazzling new 20th anniversary artwork

‘Westworld’ stuns fans by releasing a Season 2 spoiler video… with a twist

Tiffany Haddish thanked Lorne Michaels for not hiring her on ‘Saturday Night Live’

[ethanalter]

'Westworld' stuns fans by releasing a Season 2 spoiler video... with a twist

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Season 1 and Season 2 of Westworld… or does it? 

It’s safe to say that Reddit and Westworld share a love/hate relationship. As in Reddit loves to guess the twists on HBO’s sci-fi series before they happen, and Westworld executive producers Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy hate it when they’re right (but in a loving way). So during an April 9 “Ask Me Anything” Q&A session on Reddit, Nolan and Joy proposed a truce of sorts: with HBO’s permission, they’d post a video outlining all of the twists for the show’s second season, premiering April 22. In return, Reddit users would promise not to leak the details to those viewers who wanted to watch the show spoiler-free.

“It’s a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them,” the husband-and-wife creative team wrote. “And trust is a big part of that. We’ve made our cast part of this decision, and they’re fully supportive. We’re so excited to be in this with you guys together. So if this post reaches a 1000 upvotes we’ll deliver the goods.” Not surprisingly, the post almost immediately cracked 1,000 upvotes and, true to their word, the duo posted a link to a 25-minute video in the early morning hours of April 10.

“All right guys,” Nolan teased. “We left this in your hands. Some may feel this is a drastic step, but I, for one, love and trust this community.” Go ahead and watch the clip above, and come back here in roughly 1 minute and 38 seconds.

SPOILER ALERT: The whole thing is a prank. And not just any prank: an epic Rickroll that will likely go down in Internet history as the gold standard for this particular gag. After purporting to show us the opening scene of Season 2, with explanatory narration by series star Jeffrey Wright, the video cuts away to Clementine (Angela Sarafyan) — looking fit as a fiddle again after her brutal Season 1 decommissioning — playing the piano as Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) starts to sing some familiar lyrics. “We’re no strangers to love, you know the rules and so do I.” Those are, of course, the opening lines to Rick Astley’s immortal 1987 classic “Never Gonna Give You Up,” the song at the center of every Rickroll.

Angela Sarafyan and Evan Rachel Wood in a prank video for ‘Westworld’ Season 2. (Photo: YouTube)

To their credit, both Wood and Sarafyan make it through the first verse and chorus without cracking up. At that point, the screen fades to black and Nolan and Joy gently chide us for our gullibility with a written note: “Dear Reddit, From all of us here at Westworld, thank you for watching. We hope you enjoy season two…” As for those remaining 23 minutes? It’s black-and-white footage of an adorable dog sitting in front of the Sweetwater saloon’s piano while the Westworld theme plays on a loop.

Okay, so the Westworld crew got us good. Nevertheless, let’s rewind the tape a little and re-examine that opening scene, which could very well be a legit excerpt from Season 2. “Our season begins with Bernard waking up on a beach,” Wright says, catching up with where his alter ego ended up after the Dolores-led robot uprising that closed out Season 1. His creator, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins), was among those killed in the initial skirmish, taking the knowledge that Bernard is actually a host to the grave with him. As Wright tells us in voiceover, even Bernard doesn’t remember that particular piece of information, so he’s of little help to the two security experts overseeing the ragtag band of human survivors. That pair consists of Westworld security chief Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) and newcomer Karl Strand (Gustaf Skarsgard), who Wright describes as the “Delos head of security.”

Our first glimpse of Gustaf Skarsgard as Karl Strand. (Photo: YouTube)

If the video is to be trusted (and that’s a big “If”), this the first we’re hearing of Strand’s occupation; when Skarsgard’s casting was first announced last August, Strand was merely described as a “white-collar guy comfortable in the field.” This sequence shows just how comfortable he is when it comes to enforcing the law of survival of the fittest. The beach is littered with the bodies of dead hosts, and we watch a guard shoot another host point blank while passers-by are given the orders to “keep walking.” “Strand grows increasingly irritated with Bernard’s inability to remember anything,” Wright intones, adding, “The bodies littering the beach spark something, like a door opening in Bernard’s mind. The deeper he goes, the closer he gets to the meaning behind it.”

At that point, the scene cuts away to Bernard sitting on a Sweetwater-bound train, a shot that deliberately echoes James Marsden’s introduction in the series premiere. “Can he remember how it all began,” Wright says as Bernard disembarks in Sweetwater and wanders through the streets, eventually catching sight of Dolores in her blue gingham dress. Then time freezes and we head into obvious Rickroll territory.

While we obviously can’t definitively say that any of this material is authentic, certain details — like an amnesiac Bernard and a Strand-ordered mass execution of hosts — do feel like natural story fodder for Season 2. We’d ask Nolan and Joy, but after this stunt we don’t want to get fooled again.

The second season of Westworld premieres April 22 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

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Accio ‘Harry Potter’ covers: See the dazzling new 20th anniversary artwork

Laura Ingraham came back to Fox News, hurt but fighting

[ethanalter]

Disney tweets then deletes this dark 'Pinocchio' message after social media blowback

The Blue Fairy gives life to Pinocchio in this still from the Disney animated classic. (Photo: Everett Collection)

Between such current hits as Black Panther and mighty blockbusters-to-come like Avengers: Infinity War, Solo: A Star Wars Adventure, and The Incredibles 2, Disney has plenty to be joyful about this year. That’s why social media was caught off guard over the weekend when the official Mouse House Twitter feed issued an ennui-laden status update. A since-deleted tweet from the @Disney account featured a short clip from the studio’s 1940 animated classic, Pinocchio, with the Blue Fairy bringing the titular wooden puppet to life. Above that clip were the words: “When someone compliments you, but you’re dead inside,” a strangely dark sentiment that the mystery tweet-writer agreed with by writing, “Makes no difference who you are” — a lyric from the movie’s signature Oscar-winning song, “Wish Upon a Star.”

Twitter users immediately took notice of Disney’s melancholy mood, and speculation ran rampant about what exactly Mickey Mouse was trying to tell everyone.

disney???? pic.twitter.com/lw0I8YNDV3

— (@thechoibois) April 9, 2018

Did Disney just confirm Pinocchio is dead inside

— wadanohara (@BrightRistar) April 9, 2018

Is @Disney still the happiest place on Earth, cause this is… kinda.. morbid, I’m concerned… https://t.co/ENFWtUqN5x

— Darling Nikki (@miss_lady_diva) April 8, 2018

Me when I saw that Pinocchio tweet by @Disney. #dead pic.twitter.com/wh4gPQIy4X

— Callie Goodwin (@Callie_goodwin) April 9, 2018

Originally posted at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 8, the Pinocchio tweet remained in Disney’s feed until Monday morning, by which time it had garnered thousands of replies and RTs. And Twitter was still talking about it even after it got scrubbed from the site.

Disney just deleted the “dead inside” tweet. pic.twitter.com/bebFlBQW3m

— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) April 9, 2018

. @Disney deleted the tweet about being dead inside “No matter who you are”. Took them maybe 12 hours lol

— GiGi (@itsDiGiovanni) April 9, 2018

omg @Disney deleted their dead inside tweet. disney intern you’re doing amazing sweetie! don’t let the higher-ups kill your creativity. this was great pic.twitter.com/Xq2YoQZcfN

— Josh Grant (@thejoshuagrant) April 9, 2018

aww @Disney deleted that tweet that said we are dead inside :/ now I am actually feeling dead inside

— Jon (@jknit135) April 9, 2018

At press time, the studio had yet to comment about who pushed the “Tweet” button in the first place, and why it was ultimately deleted. If you ask us, they’d be wise to check Twitter for splinters, because this sure sounds like the work of that dastardly Peg-Leg Pete.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ trailer: Who is Chewbacca hugging and other burning questions

Catherine Zeta-Jones and daughter make rare appearance together at NYC fashion event

Carrie Underwood’s big mystery: What’s that Instagram post all about?

[ethanalter]

'SNL' Recap: Chadwick Boseman roars on a 'Black Panther' heavy episode

Chadwick Boseman hosts ‘Saturday Night Live’ for the first time (Photo: Will Heath/NBC)

While other 2018 movies like The Commuter and Red Sparrow have come and gone, Black Panther is forever. The Marvel Studios blockbuster is enjoying its second month as a pop culture phenomenon and stands tall on the box office charts at $660 million and counting. So it’s no wonder that King T’Challa himself, Chadwick Boseman, was greeted like actual royalty when he walked onto the Saturday Night Live stage for his inaugural hosting gig, flashing a “Wakanda Forever” salute.

There’s one small problem with the movie’s longevity, though: “It’s actually kind of tough hosting, because SNL has already done a bunch of sketches about Black Panther, so there’s only really bad ideas left,” Boseman admitted in his opening monologue. “The writers were like, ‘What about a talk show called Wake Up Wakanda? Or a sketch where Black Panther has sex with Leslie Jones? And that was a Leslie Jones idea!”

Despite Boseman’s warnings, we’re happy to report that the Black Panther-themed sketches turned out to be the high points of the episode. Making T’Challa a contestant on Black Jeopardy, for example, elevated an already popular recurring sketch to new comedic heights.

It also smartly spoke to one of the movie’s most resonant themes: the cultural divide between the native Africans who inhabit the kingdom of Wakanda and African-Americans like T’Challa’s cousin Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). Not that the other Black Jeopardy competitors expressed equally militant views, but they did raise their eyebrows at how little the king seemed to know about the politics of barbershops and grandmamas. But by the end of the sketch, T’Challa caught on, issuing a spirited “Aw, hell naw” to a white woman named Karen who dared to bring her “bland ass potato salad” to a cookout.

Boseman revisited Black Panther—not as T’Challa this time—in the show’s final sketch, helping to negotiate a truce between black and white fans of the movie about who is and isn’t allowed to use the Wakanda salute. After a spirited discussion about cultural appropriation (“We know your history—you don’t give stuff back,” Jones told Beck Bennet and Pete Davidson) and the mass appeal of comic book movies, Boseman finally decrees that the Wakanda salute belongs to everyone. “In exchange,” he added, “you must give back dabbing.” Davidson and Bennet countered that offer with giving back Drake and peace reigned…just like Boseman reigned over a pretty great SNL.

Worst Sketch: “Medical Breakthrough” We didn’t think it was possible to address male pregnancy in a less amusing way than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1994 non-classic Junior, but this sketch pulled it off. Poor Boseman had to describe the process of delivering a child through one’s urethra—a challenge greater than any he faced as Black Panther.

Trump Watch: Once a ubiquitous presence in Studio 8H, Alec Baldwin is down to once-a-month appearances as the POTUS. For his April cold open cameo, he recreated Trump’s White House meeting with a trio of Baltic leaders from earlier this week, and addressed the President’s war with Amazon, making it clear it was motivated largely out of his hatred for Jeff Bezos’s comfortableness with being bald. He also denounced the caravans of Mexican immigrants he had seen on Fox News—although based on his fever dream description it sounds like he had fallen asleep to Mad Max: Fury Road on HBO instead. Finally, he revealed his slogan for his 2020 re-election campaign: “I don’t care about America; this whole Presidency is four year cash-grab.” Points for honesty, but that doesn’t fit quite as neatly on a red baseball cap.

Let’s Get Political: “The Game of Life: DACA Edition” This ad for a Dreamer-themed version of the classic board game scored its political points more effectively than the entirety of the cold open, and in half the time. The Presidential Tweet card > than Baldwin repeating actual Trump tweets.

Most Truth in Advertising: “Nike Women’s Ad” Did Liz Lemon move into advertising after leaving TGS? Because this hilarious ode to the glory of chillaxing on the sofa in leggings resembled vintage 30 Rock. The couch panini recipe of leggings, blanket, laptop sure sounds like a Liz Lemon special.

Where’s Shuri?: “Disney Princesses” When Leslie Jones gazed into Disneyland’s Magic Mirror, she saw Boseman as R. Kelly staring back at her instead of royalty like Elsa or Rapunzel. But the Black Panther star happens to know a real Disney princess: Letitia Wright, who plays T’Challa’s super-smart sibling, Shuri. As the sister to Wakanda’s king, Shuri is already social media’s favorite Disney princess, and a surprise Wright cameo would have scored screams from the audience instead of polite applause.

Best Weekend Update Cameo: Angel The more specific your original “Weekend Update” characters are, the more likely they are to recur. So it goes with Heidi Gardner’s Angel a.k.a. every boxer’s girlfriend from every movie about boxing ever, who got her first tryout in November and scored a well-deserved Round 2. You don’t actually have to have watched every boxing movie ever to appreciate Gardner’s ultra-specific blending of Amy Adams, Talia Shire and Renée Zelleweger…but it helps.

Episode MVP: The Wakanda salute What else is there to say, but: Wakanda forver.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. on NBC

[ethanalter]

Molly Ringwald reveals the fights she had with John Hughes over nude scenes and panties

Molly Ringwald in the 1985 teen classic The Breakfast Club. (Photo: Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Legend has it that John Hughes’s 1985 teen movie classic, The Breakfast Club, scored its R-rating for salty language and non-judgmental marijuana usage. Had it not been for star Molly Ringwald, though, the film’s list of R-rated offenses would have included nudity. In a fascinating first-person New Yorker article, the ’80s icon — and frequent Hughes collaborator — reveals that she convinced the writer/director to ditch a nude scene that he had added into a later draft of the script. “In the shooting script of The Breakfast Club, there was a scene in which an attractive female gym teacher swam naked in the school’s swimming pool as Mr. Vernon, the teacher who is in charge of the students’ detention, spied on her,” writes Ringwald, who played quintessential popular girl, Claire Standish. “The scene wasn’t in the first draft I read, and I lobbied John to cut it. He did, and although I’m sure the actress who had been cast in the part still blames me for foiling her break, I think the film is better for it.”

That’s just one of the examples Ringwald cites in her article where Hughes allowed a certain crudeness to sneak into his films — specifically in relation to his depiction of teenage girls. While his films are still regarded as the gold standard for teen movies in terms of how they balance comedy, drama, and character complexity, as the decades have passed, not everything about them has aged well. And Ringwald is the first to admit that the trio of features that she made with Hughes between 1984 and 1986 — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink — play very differently in the #MeToo era. “I had what could be called a symbiotic relationship with John during the first two of those films,” she remarks. “I’ve been called his muse, which I believe I was, for a little while. But, more than that, I felt that he listened to me — though certainly not all the time. Coming out of the National Lampoon school of comedy, there was still a residue of crassness that clung, no matter how much I protested.”

In addition to The Breakfast Club‘s abandoned nude scene, Ringwald remembers two other instances where both she and her mother challenged Hughes on sexually suggestive moments. The first came in Sixteen Candles when her character, Samantha, gifts lovestruck Ted (Anthony Michael Hall) with her panties so that he can win a bet he made with Bryce and Cliff (John Cusack and Darren Harris). In the following scene, she has a heart-to-heart with her father, which Ringwald says ended in a very different manner in Hughes’s original script.

“It originally ended with the father asking, ‘Sam, what the hell happened to your underpants?’ My mom objected. ‘Why would a father know what happened to his daughter’s underwear?’ she asked. John squirmed uncomfortably. He didn’t mean it that way, he said — it was just a joke, a punch line. ‘But it’s not funny,’ my mother said. ‘It’s creepy.’ The line was changed to ‘Just remember, Sam, you wear the pants in the family.'”

Anthony Michael Hall and Ringwald in Sixteen Candles. (Photo: Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection)

Ringwald and her mother apparently had less success convincing Hughes to abandon another underwear-based scene for The Breakfast Club. At one point during the movie, Judd Nelson’s flannel-clad rebel John Bender hides under a desk and catches a glimpse of Claire’s panties. “They hired an adult woman for the shot of Claire’s underwear,” Ringwald reveals. “They couldn’t even ask me to do it — I don’t think it was permitted by law to ask a minor — but even having another person pretend to be me was embarrassing to me and upsetting to my mother, and she said so. That scene stayed, though.”

Three decades removed from the experience of making The Breakfast Club, Ringwald even finds its crowd-pleasing romance between John and Claire difficult to root for now. As she writes:

“What’s more, as I can see now, Bender sexually harasses Claire throughout the film. When he’s not sexualizing her, he takes out his rage on her with vicious contempt, calling her ‘pathetic,’ mocking her as ‘Queenie.’ It’s rejection that inspires his vitriol. Claire acts dismissively toward him, and, in a pivotal scene near the end, she predicts that at school on Monday morning, even though the group has bonded, things will return, socially, to the status quo… He never apologizes for any of it, but, nevertheless, he gets the girl in the end.”

Watching The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles again with her own daughter, Ringwald admits that she sees a number of other shortcomings beyond those that directly involve her characters. In addition to the general lack of diversity onscreen, there’s a certain level of casual racism — best exemplified by the unfortunately-named character of Long Duk Dong — as well as extremely uncomfortable subplots like Ted taking Polaroids of a drunk girl he brings home after a party. (Interestingly, the actress who played that role, Haviland Morris, told Ringwald that she’s not as bothered by the scene today.) Tellingly, she says that plans for her and Hughes to make a fourth film together after Pretty in Pink collapsed when she requested that Hughes, who hated doing rewrites, make some revisions. “Hughes refused, and the film was never made, though there could have been other circumstances I was not aware of.”

Annie Potts, John Hughes, and Ringwald on the set of Pretty in Pink. (Photo: Mary Evans/Paramount Pictures/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection)

Despite some of the misgivings she wrestles with in her piece, Ringwald is also highly conscious of Hughes’s seismic impact on moviegoers, to say nothing of her own career. “John believed in me, and in my gifts as an actress, more than anyone else I’ve known, and he was the first person to tell me that I had to write and direct one day,” she writes in one of the article’s many moving passages. Far from tarnishing the legacy of either Hughes or the movies they made together, her first-hand account makes it clear that these generational favorites still have a lot to teach us about how we should, and shouldn’t, talk about teenagers.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

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Fewer guns, more ‘adult’ dialogue: How will the Parkland, Fla., students impact teen TV?

Why vampires aren’t as sexy in the age of #MeToo

[ethanalter]

Your exhaustive guide to the Sean Hannity and Jimmy Kimmel war

Once upon a time, the Late Night wars only involved comedians like David Letterman and Jay Leno or Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall. But in the highly politicized atmosphere of 2018, a new front has opened up in this ongoing TV battle, one that pits a comic against a political commentator. For two evenings now, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and Fox News’ Sean Hannity have been trading barbs on Twitter and through their respective nightly shows. Kimmel addressed the feud directly on Thursday night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, saying, “I woke up this morning… and I opened up my computer and found out I’m at war with Sean Hannity and Fox News.” (Watch the clip above.)

So how did this war begin? Travel back with us to the evening of April 3, when Kimmel dedicated a portion of his monologue to the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, held at Donald and Melania Trump’s current residence on Easter Sunday.

No one celebrates #Easter quite like the Trumps… pic.twitter.com/s2N1zpj7Qs

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 3, 2018

During that bit, Kimmel joked that FLOTUS, who serves as the official host of the Egg Roll, didn’t do a heck of a lot to organize the event (preferring to work on her “escape tunnel” from the White House), and also poked fun at her slightly stilted storytime session with the young attendees. That’s the joke that Fox & Friends strenuously objected to on Wednesday morning, a day removed from Kimmel’s original comments. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt and contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy — who noted that she’s the daughter of an immigrant — upbraided him for his remarks, with Campos-Duffy describing them as a “dagger to the heart.”

“To be mocked…when you worked so hard to learn the language, feels like a dagger to the heart” –@RCamposDuffy recounts her mom’s reaction to Jimmy Kimmel mocking Melania Trump’s foreign accent pic.twitter.com/ObYldpHcCM

— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 5, 2018

On Wednesday night, Hannity entered the arena to weigh in on the story for the first time. “Jimmy, you’re a despicable disgrace,” he opined, going on to label him an “ass clown.”

That brings us up to Thursday night and Kimmel’s retort, in which he questioned what exactly an “ass clown” is anyway. “Is it an ass that’s a clown or a clown that actually lives in an ass,” he wondered, going on to ask why Hannity is so interested in “clowns in the ass”. He also pondered why he’s the “despicable disgrace” when his Fox News attacker supported disgraced Alabama Senatorial candidate, Roy Moore. “If I’m an ass clown… you, Sean, are the whole ass circus.”

Expect this fight to continue late into Friday night, when both Hannity and Kimmel take to the airwaves again. In the meantime, Twitter is serving as another battleground. Hannity has spent the past few hours tweeting old video clips of racy Kimmel interviews from the now-defunct Comedy Central series, The Man Show, making sure to tag ABC’s owners at the Walt Disney Company.

This is ABC’s @jimmykimmel aka Harvey Weinstein Jr. Asking 18 year old girls to grab his crotch and “put their mouth on it”. Jimmy that’s you being a pervert asshole. How would you feel if that was your daughter? I bet @Disney is so proud. https://t.co/o7ydG72Pzc

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 6, 2018

More of Disney’s @jimmykimmel being Harvey Weinstein Jr. https://t.co/TSvaqT5cPE

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 6, 2018

So @jimmykimmel (aka Harvey Weinstein jr) I’ll have much more tomorrow…… @Disney Tick Tock.. Best Sean #pervertkimmel

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 6, 2018

Kimmel responded directly to that latter Tweet, setting off a whole new volley of shots fired.

I can’t wait! https://t.co/2LhDiF7Lw7

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 6, 2018

Game on….. Oh ask the boss @Disney Bob about the conversation we had about you. Best Sean #pervertkimmel https://t.co/9W04t4J8Ak

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 6, 2018

Bob Abooey? https://t.co/slJZKeV2FJ

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 6, 2018

Since everyone loves a good Twitter feud, the Kimmel/Hannity war is getting plenty of attention and color commentary from the public.

Whoa. Sean Hannity has landed a blockbuster scoop: Jimmy Kimmel co-hosted “The Man Show” 19 years ago! (Hannity is also recycling the same clips the right wing propaganda machine “uncovered” last fall).

— TV MoJoe (@TVMoJoe) April 6, 2018

Jimmy Kimmel is a totally idiot! He is not funny. He should me taken off the air. Where is #metoo movement on this? This is totally disqusting!!!

— Christopher Beahan (@Christo23454731) April 6, 2018

OMG. Just saw Jimmy’s response to Hannity. Perfect to the last word. Hannity is totally the whole circus of ass clowns.

— Martha Kretzmer (@kretzmer_martha) April 6, 2018

With all eyes on these battling hosts, don’t be surprised if Hannity and Jimmy Kimmel Live! score record Friday numbers tonight. After all, war may be hell, but it’s great for ratings.

[ethanalter]

How John Krasinski tortured Emily Blunt for 'A Quiet Place'

Directing your spouse in a feature film is already a daunting proposition. And if that feature film happens to be a horror movie, it can be downright terrifying. That’s the situation that John Krasinski confronted when he and his real-life wife, Emily Blunt, decided to play the fictional couple at the center of the chilling new monster movie, A Quiet Place. Opening in theaters on Friday, the Krasinski-directed creature feature takes place in a post-apocalyptic America where much of the population has been consumed by beasts who feed on sound.

The Abbott family — which includes Lee and Evelyn (Krasinski and Blunt), and their two children (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) — have so far managed to escape that bloody fate by leading largely silent lives. But with a new baby on the way, they’re only going to be able to remain quiet for so long; over the course of one long day and night, we watch as their carefully maintained existence breaks down… and the creatures they’ve kept at bay come calling.

As the director, it was Krasinski’s task to put his cast through the physical and emotional wringer to heighten A Quiet Place‘s fear factor. That meant that no one received special treatment, including his beloved bride. In fact, Blunt is front and center in one of the movie’s scariest set-pieces: an extended sequence where Evelyn goes into labor in a bathtub as one of the monsters hovers outside the door. “I think the hardest thing for me was to torture her like that — meaning having her go multiple takes,” Krasinski tells Yahoo Entertainment about that scene, which was filmed over the course of one very long, very intense week. “But I left it up to her; she’s a rip-the-Band-Aid off kind of performer, so she said, ‘Let’s do it, let’s go in one week.'”

Emily Blunt in the tense bathtub sequence in A Quiet Place. (Photo: Jonny Cournoyer/Paramount /Courtesy Everett Collection)

Both Krasinski and Blunt point to the bathtub sequence as being a case where their off-screen relationship only enhanced the finished film. “I’ve watched her go through [birth] in real life,” the former star of The Office says of his wife, with whom he has two young daughters. “I’d seen the incredible strength it took for her to have our girls. I think it would have been even weirder to have a stranger go through that!” Meanwhile, Blunt credits her husband’s background as an actor for making the scene less painful to shoot. “He’s really supportive, and knows that you’ve got to give people space. He just set the camera down and was like, ‘Do whatever you want.'”

Another example of the couples’ real life colliding with their reel life comes earlier in the movie when Evelyn and Lee slow-dance to Neil Young’s 1992 favorite “Harvest Moon,” while sharing a pair of earbuds to keep the volume low. “It’s a really personal song for us,” Krasinski reveals. “Our two dear friends got married to that song. It’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie, and a great example of a scene where no dialogue is so helpful. I could never have written lines that wouldn’t have sounded clunky. If the guy looked at the girl and said, ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m scared,’ it would have been the worst scene ever. So thank god we didn’t have dialogue!”

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[ethanalter]

Here's the story behind that 'American Chopper' meme you're seeing everywhere

The argument between the father and son motorcycle makers on ‘American Chopper’ has attained a whole new life as a meme. (Photo: Discovery)

After a five years in Discovery’s proverbial TV garage, the hit reality series American Chopper rides again this May, with battling father-son duo Paul Teutul Sr. and Paul Teutul Jr. back on the hog. The show’s imminent return is being hyped on its official website, where old and new viewers can preview the Season 11 premiere (which officially debuts on May 28), and catch up with the highlights of Chopper‘s original run. And one of those highlights has taken the Internet by storm.

The short behind-the-scenes featurette Meet the Teutuls contains footage of the explosive 2009 argument that resulted in Paul Jr. being fired from his dad’s custom motorcycle company and setting up his own shop. “I look back at it when I watch the show, and I wish I would have responded differently,” an older, wiser Junior says in the mini-documentary. (Watch the full shouting match below.)

He may wish he had handled things differently, but Twitter sure doesn’t. Since footage of this argument resurfaced recently, it’s become social media’s newest, hottest meme. Instead of pointing fingers and screaming about Junior’s commitment to his dad’s company, the Twitter versions of Senior and Junior are arguing about whether Garfield is a hero or menace, and the tastiness — or lack thereof — of soup. Scroll down for some of the best versions of this meme that we’ve seen.

American Chopper goes to Tarek’s pic.twitter.com/HGlxZ1Joxe

— Carman Pirie (@pirie) April 4, 2018

pic.twitter.com/4mb1m3lOHI

— GARF GAB (@GarfieldFanArt) March 22, 2018

A treat for for the presumably enormous crossover audience of American Chopper and #TwinPeaks pic.twitter.com/uedtMb7eFg

— Chad (@crvander) March 31, 2018

This is my favourite of the American Chopper memes so far. pic.twitter.com/2i2Av1Nkco

— Ryan Christiani (@RChristiani) April 4, 2018

Just because I want to get in the door before it’s completely overdone, here’s my American Chopper meme pic.twitter.com/aMCLzX0Gpw

— Nathan Humpal (@angrymice) April 4, 2018

pic.twitter.com/SkkeDOSg5I

— dirtbag winemom (@floozyesq) March 28, 2018

Of course, as with every widely circulated meme, there’s already pushback from some quarters of the Internet.

pic.twitter.com/scSlykxp7A

— Max Read (@max_read) April 4, 2018

The American Chopper meme has me reconsidering if I need glasses because they are so hard to read.

— She murdered everybody and I was her witness (@whitneytheory) April 4, 2018

I nominate “American Chopper Strawman Argument” for worst new meme

— Ben (@Iopbrain) April 4, 2018

But a few naysayers aren’t likely to derail this Tweet-generating machine as American Chopper‘s return date approaches. And hey, if the Teutuls’ motorcycle businesses are ever in danger of closing, they can easily make a living manufacturing memes.

American Chopper returns May 28 at 10 p.m on Discovery.

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[ethanalter]

How 'A Quiet Place' speaks directly to the #NeverAgain era

The baseline test of a good horror movie is whether it can scare the bejesus out of an audience. A truly great horror movie, on the other hand, is one that resonates beyond the theater by commenting on the times that the audience is living in. For instance, George A. Romeo’s 1978 classic, Dawn of the Dead, isn’t just a killer zombie flick; it’s also a trenchant warning against the mindless consumerism that defined the late ’70s and ’80s. Likewise, David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly can be analyzed as a serious case of body horror in the midst of the ’80s AIDS epidemic.

While it wasn’t conceived as such, it’s striking how the new monster movie, A Quiet Place, speaks directly to real-world events unfolding right now. Or, more accurately, doesn’t speak. Directed by John Krasinski, the film, which opens in theaters on April 6, takes place in a world where creatures who feed on sound have wiped out much of the populace. That forces the survivors — including Lee and Evelyn Abbott (played by Krasinski and his real-life spouse, Emily Blunt) and their two children (Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe) — to lead noiseless existences lest they too become monster food.

What makes this premise uniquely relevant to 2018 is that we’re living in a time where speaking up matters more than ever. Through movements like #MeToo, which calls attention to victims of sexual harassment and abuse, as well as the gun safety-focused #NeverAgain, ordinary citizens are finding new power in raising their voices. “The truth is I didn’t think about that,” Krasinski confesses to Yahoo Entertainment when we interviewed him and the cast of A Quiet Place recently. “I wasn’t smart enough to think about that while making the movie. But now that people are talking about it, it’s very moving to me. I think that’s incredible. I think one of the greatest compliments you can have as a director is that your movie creates a conversation. This is a time where raising your voice … that’s something we all must admire and support. … You have to look at these kids and be inspired, because there’s a strength in those kids that doesn’t come around very often.”

It wasn’t lost on anyone that we were discussing A Quiet Place on the same day that millions of Americans were speaking up about gun safety by participating in the 800-plus March for Our Lives events taking place across the country. Organized by survivors of the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Fla., these rallies demonstrated the strength of the #NeverAgain movement and the tenacity of its young leaders. “It’s just the most exciting, inspiring day,” said Blunt. “You’re crazy if you don’t admire these kids.” The movie’s younger stars — who are on the cusp of entering their teenage years — were equally eloquent in their support of the young marchers. “I think it’s really amazing that kids know that they can fight,” Simmonds, who is deaf, said through an interpreter. “There’s value in the world for everyone’s voice, not just a certain segment. … We’re all one family, in the end, and one world; even though we all have different languages and we’re from different cultures, we’re still one world.”

A Quiet Place premieres Friday, April 6.

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[ethanalter]

Taraji P. Henson has a message for men in the #TimesUp era: 'Speak up'

Taraji P. Henson stars in ‘Tyler Perry’s Acrimony.’ (Photo: Chip Bergmann/Lionsgate /Courtesy Everett Collection)

If you’re a man in the entertainment industry — or, for that matter, any industry — trying to figure out how you can best contribute to the ongoing #MeToo movement, Taraji P. Henson has two simple words of advice. “Speak up,” the star of Tyler Perry’s Acrimony tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Ask what your counterpart is making or request women on the sets where you work. It takes us all, you know?”

Certainly, women have been leading the way since previously suppressed stories of sexual harassment and abuse have spilled over into the public view, whether it’s been through coordinated red carpet campaigns or moving testimonials that resonate with righteous fury. “I hope it’s not a fad,” Henson says of Hollywood’s still-ongoing round of truth-telling. “What I’m seeing is great, so let’s just continue to keep it this way. We’ve been in good ways in this country before, and then find ourselves going backwards. I’m like, ‘Hollywood can keep moving forward.'”

Henson and Brad Pitt star in ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,’ a movie that the actress says paid her ‘sofa change.’ (Photo: Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection)

As Henson tells it, it was a man speaking up that, in part, helped change her own career. Ten years ago, she landed a key role in the David Fincher-directed drama The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opposite Brad Pitt as the title character — a man aging in reverse. It was one of her most high-profile roles… and the lowest-paying. In her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, Henson called her take-home salary, “the equivalent of sofa change,” although she stresses that she didn’t expect to be making the same amount as Pitt. “I just wanted it to be fair,” she says now. “I asked for what I honestly thought I deserved at that moment. I wasn’t being greedy, and I didn’t ask for a million dollars. But sometimes you’re rewarded in other ways — it didn’t come with a paycheck, it came with an Oscar nomination!” (Henson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 81st Academy Awards, but Penelope Cruz took home the statue that year for Vicky Christina Barcelona.)

While the actress took solace in her Oscar nod, writer/director Tyler Perry didn’t let her slide backwards on her conviction to request a salary commiserate with her skills. Henson first worked with the filmmaker on The Family that Preys, which opened three months before Benjamin Button. When Perry reunited with her the following year for I Can Do Bad All By Myself, he ensured she got more — much more — than sofa change. “He told me exactly what to ask for,” Henson remembers. “What’s so crazy is that this is a man who writes checks! He’s a studio executive; he knew I deserved that.”

Henson’s star, and salary, has only grown larger since 2009, thanks to appearances in hit movies like The Karate Kid remake and Hidden Figures, as well as the TV blockbuster Empire. So there’s little question that Perry happily wrote his star a big check for their third collaboration, which opens in theaters on March 29. Acrimony casts Henson as Melinda, whose decades-long marriage to amateur inventor Robert (Lyriq Bent) is on the rocks due to his various betrayals and single-minded focus on his own success. But Melinda isn’t without her own issues: she’s surrounded by family members who enable her to make bad decisions, and also possesses an inner rage that can boil over in spectacular ways.

Knowing that it would be all too easy for viewers to casually dismiss Melinda as an angry black woman, the film makes a point of explicitly addressing that stereotype early on in a scene between her and the therapist she’s been mandated by the court to visit. As she tells her story, we come to understand the roots of her anger, and why it’s a natural response to her specific circumstances. “Just because I’m passionate, you can’t call me an angry black woman,” Henson says. “Women are deemed as whining, but if a man’s not satisfied, he’s going to complain. If you’re quiet, it won’t get fixed you know? You don’t get to judge what I’m passionate about and how I express myself. I don’t know where that came from — some insecure man, somewhere!”

Henson and Lyriq Bent in ‘Tyler Perry’s Acrimony.’ (Photo: Lionsgate /Courtesy Everett Collection)

Any insecurity on the Acrimony set came from Henson herself, largely due to the fact that she had to film her entire role in five days in between Empire episodes. (The entire movie was shot in a mere eight days.) “I couldn’t have done this film 10 years ago,” she admits. “I’m able to do it faster now, because I’ve had so much practice. Once upon a time, I needed time to get into character, but I’ve proven to myself that I can work really well under pressure. That scene in the psychiatrist’s office is very long, and Tyler did it all in one continuous shot. I didn’t have the luxury of messing up, so that was a lot of pressure. I handled it like a champ, but at the time it was very scary! Only for Tyler.”

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[ethanalter]

'The Handmaid's Tale' Season 2 trailer teases fresh horrors and new storylines

Season 1 of Hulu’s Emmy-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale was a study in slow-motion dread, as our Handmaid heroine Offred (Elisabeth Moss) felt the proverbial noose tightening around her neck as the theocratic Republic of Gilead asserted its self-imposed authority over her life and body. Based on the just-released trailer for the show’s sophomore year, events are going to get real bad, real fast. (Watch the trailer above.)

Premiering on April 25, Season 2 will take the story well beyond what celebrated author Margaret Atwood outlined in her groundbreaking 1985 novel. “We are going to delve into stories that expand the world of Gilead,” Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Bruce Miller promised Yahoo Entertainment last year, adding that Moss will remain the show’s central character and voice even as its canvas widens outwards. Based on the trailer, here are the five developments we’re most anticipating in Season 2.

Serena Joy in the spotlight

Yvonne Strahovski in The Handmaid’s Tale. (Photo: Hulu)

Offred’s former jailer is seen striking a familiar pose in the trailer: This is the same window where the Handmaid often sat in Season 1, counting down the hours and minutes to the ritual where the Waterfords — Fred (Joseph Fiennes) and Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski) — essentially rape her in the name of procreation. “It’s a cross between a breeding and a sexual assault,” Moss said of this harrowing sequence. With Offred now gone, the Waterfords are turning on each other at the same time that Gilead’s rulers start to suspect that their house might be a nest of spies. While the republic’s guiding theology establishes Fred as the head of household, it was strongly implied last season that Serena Joy is the true authority in their partnership. Her heightened presence in this trailer suggests that she’s not content to be the docile spouse any longer.

The Republic strikes back

The Handmaids appear to be subjected to unique new tortures in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2. (Photo: Hulu)

Offred and her fellow Handmaids scored a moral victory when they defied Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and refused to murder one of their own, Janine, for the “crime” of wanting to be with her daughter. But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so Aunt Lydia is using the power vested in her by the Republic of Gilead to make life more hellish than it already is for the women. Foreboding shots of torture and other trials (like two prisoners being pulled underwater with weighted chains around their legs) culminate in a glimpse of a mass Handmaid hanging, all in a concentrated effort to snuff out any sparks of rebellion.

Colonial life

Our sneak peek at the Colonies in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2. (Photo: Hulu)

When women have outlived their usefulness to Gilead, the Republic exiles them to life (and certain death) in the Colonies. Atwood only hinted at the devastating conditions that awaited arrivals to these far-flung territories, but in Season 2 we’ll actually visit them alongside new arrivals Ofglen and Janine. This shot indicates the hard work and poor living arrangements that await them. We’re thinking that actual pioneers may have had a more luxurious life than these exiled colonists.

Mother and child reunion… denied

Offred has to decide whether saving her daughter means leaving her behind in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2. (Photo: Hulu)

Offred learned that her daughter is alive at the end of Season 1. Unfortunately, she now has to fight every protective maternal instinct she has in order to ensure her child’s continued survival. “She left me once, now I have to leave her,” she ruminates in the trailer. Still, there is one reunion that’s potentially in the offing: Offred is very likely to cross paths with her own mother — who is a very strong presence in the book, but remained unseen in the first season — in Season 2. “Remember: At the end of this season, Offred is pregnant and she also gets to see her child,” Miller teased. “It’s safe to say that themes of motherhood are going to be strong in Season 2. And Offred has a mother, so it seems like stories with that person would make a lot of sense.”

You will know their names

Samira Wiley as Moira in The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2. (Photo: Hulu)

Names carry power within Gilead in that the republic takes them away from its female citizens, and those women have to fight to reclaim them. And no one fights harder to hold onto her name than Offred’s friend, Moira (Samira Wiley), who rejected her identity as “Ruby” and escaped across the Canadian border and joined a teeming community of Gilead refugees at the end of last season. Her example inspires Offred to continue to keep her real name close to her heart, even if she can’t utter it out loud. “My name is June Osborne,” she says at the end of the trailer. “I am free.” We’ll soon see what freedom looks like in Gilead.

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2 premieres Wednesday, April 25 on Hulu. 

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[ethanalter]

Mark Hamill reveals George Lucas's surprising original ending for 'Star Wars: Episode IX'

Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. (Photo: Industrial Light & Magic/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Lucasfilm Ltd./Courtesy Everett Collection)

Creatively and commercially, the Star Wars series hasn’t missed a beat since it passed from the hands of its creator, George Lucas, to a new generation of filmmakers who grew up immersed in the adventures of that far, far away galaxy. The first three films of the post-Lucas period — The Force Awakens, Rogue One, and The Last Jedi — have won strong reviews (as well as multiple Oscar nominations) and occupy the top three slots on the franchise’s overall box-office chart. Nevertheless, one question can’t help but loom over this era of Star Wars like those dual suns shining above Tatooine: What would George do (WWGD)? The exact details of Lucas’s plans for his galaxy in the wake of Return of the Jedi are a hotly debated topic in Star Wars circles, in large part because they kept shifting, and the writer/director himself has mostly declined to clean up the historical record.

Erstwhile Jedi Master, Mark Hamill, on the other hand, is more than happy to wade into the fray. The dearly departed Luke Skywalker (RIP?) recently set off a tempest in a TIE Fighter when he spilled details about Lucas’s original ending for the ninth — and likely final — episode in the Skywalker Saga, which is currently being co-written and directed by Force Awakens helmer, J.J. Abrams. “I happen to know that George didn’t kill Luke until the end of [Episode] 9, after he trained Leia,” Hamill confessed to IGN. “Which is another thread that was never played upon [in The Last Jedi].” And, according to Hamill at least, Lucas had a lot of threads that haven’t been woven into the latter-day sequel series. “George had an overall arc — if he didn’t have all the details, he had sort of an overall feel for where the [sequel trilogy was] going — but this one’s more like a relay race. You run and hand the torch off to the next guy, he picks it up and goes.”

George Lucas directs Carrie Fisher on the set of A New Hope. (Photo: Everett Collection)

In The Last Jedi, of course, writer/director Rian Johnson gave Luke an unexpected, but ultimately heroic farewell, Force-casting himself across the galaxy from Ahch-To to Crait and distracting Kylo Ren just long enough to allow the ragtag Resistance fighters — led by his twin sister — to escape and fight another day. Johnson also made it clear that Leia didn’t require Luke’s tutelage to get in touch with her inner Jedi, as she ably used the Force to escape an icy grave in the vacuum of space. Instead, Rey took on the role of Luke’s designated disciple, not that he was all that eager to teach her.

Interestingly, Johnson’s bold story choices have their roots in Lucas’s plans for Episodes VII-IX… one version of them anyway. As detailed in the lushly illustrated coffee table book, The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, story treatments that Lucas penned in 2010 placed Luke on the remote island that became Ahch-To, home to the first Jedi Temple and a gaggle of tasty porgs. It’s here that he grudgingly took on a padawan in the form of Kira — not Leia — a female Jedi-in-training who evolved into Rey.

So where does the “Luke training Leia” scenario that Hamill describes come from? You’ll likely have to go back further in Lucas’s archives to find evidence of that “original” original ending. In the wake of The Phantom Menace‘s 1999 release, producer Gary Kurtz outlined how his former collaborator’s nine-film series was supposed to unfold, with Princess Leia rising in rank to Queen Leia (and losing her status as a Skywalker) around Episode VI, and Luke meeting his for-real sister in Episode VIII.

Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill as Skywalker siblings Luke and Leia in A New Hope. (Photo: Everett Collection)

Meanwhile, Lucas biographer Dale Pollock has said that when he wrote his 1983 book Skywalking, he was granted permission to read the treatments for what would have been a sprawling 12-part franchise, elements of which were eventually collapsed into Return of the Jedi. Hamill himself referenced that 12-part version in 2004, saying that Lucas planned to have Luke pass the baton… uh, lightsaber off to a new Jedi Master in Episode IX of XII.

Perhaps one day Lucas will share his various endings with the world. For now, though, The Last Jedi brings Luke’s journey to a moving conclusion… at least until he inevitably returns as a blue-hued Force Ghost in Abrams’s trilogy-capper. Not that Hamill is spilling the beans about his alter ego’s future. “No one’s really talked to me about it,” he said (rather unconvincingly) to IGN. If he’s telling the truth, though, Episode IX could be an entirely Skywalker-free finale, as Carrie Fisher’s tragic death in 2016 means Leia won’t be part of the Resistance’s final battle. We like to think that they are both ones with the Force, training each other in the art of being better Jedi.

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[ethanalter]

Why 'Pacific Rim Uprising' is the perfect movie for the March for Our Lives movement

Cailee Spaeny, John Boyega, and Scott Eastwood in Pacific Rim Uprising. (Photo: Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection)

Warning: This post contains big spoilers for Pacific Rim Uprising.

On any other weekend, Pacific Rim: Uprising would just be a mediocre sequel to an almost-blockbuster that didn’t need to spawn a franchise. Through a quirk of the calendar, though, the giant robots vs. giant monsters slugfest stomped into theaters on March 23 equipped with an unexpectedly giant resonance. In Uprising‘s protracted climax, Earth is on the verge of extinction and our only hope is an untested, unproven squad of teenagers. And on March 24, a veritable army of teens — accompanied by their parents and younger siblings — will take to the streets in cities and communities across the country for the nationwide March for Our Lives rally.

Organized by high school students in the wake of last month’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the rallies will call for an end to the gun violence that has devastated communities from Columbine to Newtown. Unlike Uprising, no supersize monsters will be slain at these nonviolent protests, but it’s striking that young people are the ones leading the charge in both the movie’s reality and our reality. “It’s our turn to save the world,” one of the teen soldiers in Uprising says as he co-pilots a Jaeger — Pacific Rim‘s moniker for those big bots — into battle. It’s highly likely to imagine those same words being uttered at Saturday’s marches as well.

That’s because Uprising inadvertently echoes a sentiment that’s been expressed by some of the Parkland survivors turned activists, namely that the task of fixing our planet has fallen to the younger generation because of the older generation’s mistakes. “This is our fight now, because you messed it up so badly,” Parkland student Emma Gonzalez memorably told MSNBC in February. The youthful stars of Uprising similarly have to wrestle with the sins of their fathers. At the end of Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 original, mankind used Jaeger technology and good old-fashioned gumption to defeat the monstrous kaiju threat. At that point, the robots could easily have been decommissioned and used for scrap material to rebuild the badly battered world.

The teen soldiers of Pacific Rim Uprising. (Photo: Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection)

Instead, when Uprising — which was directed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer veteran Steven S. DeKnight — picks up a decade later, Jaegers are still part of the landscape and continue to function as a global defense force. In fact, one intrepid company, the Shao Corporation, is even hoping to remove the human element by replacing flesh-and-blood pilots with drones. Taking point on that research is none other than Newt Geiszler (Charlie Day), the dorky scientist of the first movie who reveals a sinister agenda here. See, 10 years ago Newt helped defeat the giant monster threat by mind-melding or “drifting” with a kaiju brain, giving General Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) the intel he needed to destroy the Breach connecting the two realms. As we learn in Uprising, though, that bold (or, if you prefer, foolhardy) experiment allowed the kaiju to access and assume control of Newt’s brain. Our enemies then proceed to use our own technology against us, infiltrating the drone Jaegers and dispatching them on a mission to reopen the Breach and allow fresh creatures through to finish the job.

What the kaiju didn’t anticipate, however, is that Stacker’s own son, Jake (John Boyega), would be there to greet them. After spending much of the past decade trying to escape his legacy as the direct descendant of a deceased war hero, the younger Pentecost ultimately embraces his inner leader when he’s brought in to train the next generation of Jaeger pilots. These kids — whose ranks include a scrappy orphan named Amara (Cailee Spaeny) and stoic Russian Vik (Ivanna Sakhno) — are a long way from being combat ready, but they don’t have much of a choice when those kaiju-powered drones decimate the Jaeger ranks. With one inspirational speech, Jake takes the training wheels off, and the students immediately graduate to soldier status.

The teen-piloted Jaegers race into battle in Pacific Rim Uprising. (Photo: Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection)

Watching Uprising‘s finale in the moment, I have to admit that my initial response was a cynical, “Oh, please.” After all, if the movie had any interest in authenticity, the kaiju would make easy mincemeat of the teen-piloted Jaegers and the apocalypse would be assured, rather than canceled. On the other hand, who wants authenticity from a giant robot movie? The resonance of seeing those teenagers put their own lives on the line to save the adults that got them into this mess — not to mention the generation that would be erased if the monsters win — ultimately trumps the ridiculousness of their presence on the battlefield.

And thinking about Uprising in the context of the #NeverAgain movement that’s been powering this ongoing wave of youth activism makes the movie’s fantastical finale even more ideally suited to our present-day circumstances. At a time when older generations couldn’t make headway on gun control, teenagers have thankfully stepped into the breach and are fighting the battle for their own futures in our stead. That the March for Our Lives is happening at all is a testament to their youthful spirit, ingenuity, and facility with tools that are both old (peaceful protest) and new (social media). Pacific Rim Uprising is a movie that doesn’t need to exist, but in an almost entirely accidental way, it ends up speaking directly to the generation so many of us are desperately depending on. After all, it’s their turn to save the world.

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[ethanalter]

Claire Foy teases a whole new look for Lisbeth Salander in 'The Girl in the Spider's Web'

Claire Foy stars in the new Steven Soderbergh psychodrama ‘Unsane.’ (Photo: Bleecker Street Media/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Lisbeth Salander typically isn’t a difficult person to pick out of a crowd. With her jet-black hair, multiple piercings, and one very prominent dragon tattoo, the central character in Stieg Larsson’s bestselling Millennium series makes an immediate impression on the page and in her cinematic appearances. Nevertheless, audiences might not immediately recognize the hacker extraordinaire when she returns to the big screen this November in The Girl in the Spider’s Web, and not just because there’s a new face in the role. According to Claire Foy, who inherited Salander’s leather wardrobe from predecessors Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara, Lisbeth’s sense of personal style has received an upgrade — or, more accurately, a downgrade.

“It’s quite a pared-down look,” the Golden Globe-winning star of The Crown says of Salander’s makeover in the film, directed by Fede Álvarez. “The costume we’ve found for Lisbeth isn’t the same as any of the other actresses have worn, but it feels very like-minded. Her [thinking] now is, ‘I want to make sure that I’m wearing it — it’s not wearing me.'” In addition to her most familiar tattoo, Salander will show off some new ink in Spider’s Web, designs that were personally chosen by Foy in collaboration with the film’s makeup team. “I love the tattoos, because I got to help decide what I was having and where they were,” she says.

Claire Foy’s predecessors as Lisbeth Salander: Rooney Mara in David Fincher’s 2011 film and Noomi Rapace in the 2009 Swedish-language version (Photo: Baldur Bragason/Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection; DANMARKS RADIO/DET DANSKE FILMINSTITUT/FILM I VAST Knut Koivisto/Ronald Grant Archive/Mary Evans/Everett Collection)

As Foy explains, the main motivation for Lisbeth’s stylistic evolution is her personal evolution since we originally encountered her in the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was previously adapted into a 2009 Swedish film and then a 2011 American remake starring Rapace and Mara respectively. (Rapace reprised the role in two sequels, and while Mara hoped to continue with the franchise, the studio had other ideas.) The fourth book in the series — and the first not written by Larsson, who died in 2004 — The Girl in the Spider’s Web finds Salander having put the events of the previous novels behind her. That is, until she’s once more drawn into a mystery by crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason), this one involving a top-secret group of hackers known as the Spider Society.

“In the first three books, you’re getting her life story, and how she frees herself from the shackles of being a ward of the state,” Foy says. “The fourth book is a different story, in a way. It’s the same character, but you’re not joining a Lisbeth who is still dealing with that part of her life. The story we tell, especially in the beginning of the film, is ‘What does she do now? What’s her purpose?’ I’m excited for people to see it; we’re not trying to make it like anything else [in the series], but we’re also not trying to make it wildly different. We’re just trying to be truthful to the story.”

In between stepping down from England’s throne following Season 2 of The Crown (when the show returns, Olivia Coleman will play an older Queen Elizabeth) and tatting up to play Lisbeth, Foy donned a hospital gown for Steven Soderbergh’s psychodrama Unsane, which is now in theaters. The Ocean’s Eleven director shot the entire film on an iPhone, although the actress found that conceit less exotic than the fact that she was able to perform the entire script in sequence, rather than out of order as most movies (and TV episodes for that matter) are filmed. “That was the first time I’ve done that, and it was amazing,” she raves. “I could play the part in real time. And Steven had so much more freedom with where he could put the camera and move it; we could do more in the time we had. That’s why the movie has an energy and pace to it that you don’t normally get.”

Visual proof that Steven Soderbergh directed ‘Unsane’ entirely on an iPhone. (Photo: Bleecker Street Media /Courtesy Everett Collection)

Acting in real time helped Foy better track the slippery sanity of her character, Sawyer Valentini, a troubled woman who inadvertently commits herself to a mental institution that, to her horror, also employs her ex-stalker (Joshua Leonard). Or does it? Sawyer’s point of view isn’t necessarily the most reliable, and the film toys with whether what we’re watching is real or a symptom of her disturbed mind. As the person playing the part, though, Foy didn’t have the luxury of debating the reality of every moment. “Whatever reality happening at that time was the reality I was in,” she says. “I couldn’t really think ahead or in the past; I had to play every moment as that moment.”

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[ethanalter]

Poll: 4 ways 'The X-Files' could continue without Gillian Anderson

Gillian Anderson in what may be her last-ever episode of ‘The X-Files.’ (Photo: Shane Harvey/FOX)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season finale, “My Struggle IV,” of The X-Files.

Even though it wasn’t advertised as such, last night’s Season 11 finale of The X-Files was effectively the show’s (second) series finale. That’s because Gillian Anderson publicly resigned from the sci-fi series before the season started, and has so far declined to walk that announcement back. With her departure in mind, Chris Carter made sure to write an ending for Anderson’s beloved alter ego, Dana Scully, into the 10th and final episode, “My Struggle IV.” For much of the hour, Scully and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) pursued their fugitive son William (Miles Robbins), hoping to reach the psychically-powered, shape-shifting teenager before either faction of the show’s larger conspiracy got to him first.

In the closing moments, Scully caught up to William — who had assumed Mulder’s form — and bid him a quick goodbye before he was murdered by his actual dad, Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davies) a.k.a. Carl Gerhard Busch. The real Mulder then turned up and shot his longtime nemesis (who also happens to be his father, too), and mourned the loss of William with Scully. “I carried him, I bore him, but I was never a mother to him,” the always-logical scientist explained, informing Mulder that, for the record, he was never William’s father either. (Fortunately for Mulder, she didn’t explicitly identify CSM as the other parent, saving Mulder from realizing that he’s in a committed relationship with his half-brother’s mom.)

Miles Robbins as William in ‘The X-Files.’ (Photo: Shane Harvey/Fox)

But parenthood hasn’t completely passed the couple by: despite their advanced age and exposure to numerous alien experiments, Mulder and Scully are expecting — no doubt a result of their motel room nooky back in the third episode. As evidenced by post-finale Twitter reactions, X-Files fandom has mixed feelings about this revelation, especially if this does prove to be Anderson’s last-ever episode.

Scully is pregnant with another Mulder’s miracle baby and this time they’re going to keep it. pic.twitter.com/4NrNsyznTk

— D.S (@anewdaysue) March 21, 2018

Scully pregnant again, and Mulder see if her pregnant, and them raising their baby together. I’m ok with not seeing anything else cc tries to ruin

— OnlyTrustMulder (@OnlyTrustScully) March 22, 2018

person: scully’s pregnant? really?

cc: well I screwed up that storyline before so I thought I’d just give myself a do-over ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— erin (@buckupcamper) March 22, 2018

So Scully is still pregnant (at 54…), after that terrifying fall in the elevator shaft. Okay. #TheXFiles

— Fede (@musingsofaphile) March 22, 2018

For his part, X-Files mastermind Chris Carter has refused to say that the show is over and done with, even if he’s lost one-half of his dynamic duo. “There are a lot more X-Files stories to tell,” he told TV Guide last year. “Whether we get to tell them is a question mark.” Based on how “My Struggle IV” wraps up, we see four possible post-Scully futures for The X-Files. Choose which version (or none of the above) you’d be most willing to watch in our poll below.

1. The X-Files: Party of One

Flash-forward nine months and Scully takes her last breath as her miracle baby takes its first, leaving Mulder alone to raise the child and carry on their joint mission for the truth. Since pairing either X-Files agent off with a fresh recruit has proved unpopular in the past (the Scully/Doggett years, for example, remain controversial), Mulder largely works solo — at least initially, affording the writers time to gracefully integrate someone he can talk to — and tries to come home without too much blood or alien goo on him. 

Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) seemed to die–but probably didn’t–in ‘The X-Files’ season finale (Photo: Shane Harvey/FOX)

2. The Skinner Files

The sixth episode of Season 11 was a showcase for Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) that could also be treated as a kind of backdoor pilot for a Skinner-centric spinoff that explores his colorful past, present, and future. Of course, the finale did heavily imply that Mulder and Scully’s biggest champion at the FBI is dead, flattened beneath Cigarette Smoking Man’s car. Remember, though, we didn’t see a body, allowing us to downgrade that from a definite fatality to a serious injury. And since Skinner is apparently persona non grata with the FBI, he wouldn’t have to necessarily inform his superiors that he’s still alive, allowing him to be an off-the-books investigator like a certain night stalker named Kolchak — one of Carter’s original inspirations for The X-Files.

3. The X-Files: On the Road

Also surviving his apparent demise was William, who surfaced from his watery grave well out of sight of Mulder and Scully. Having relinquished them of any parental responsibility, but still very much a target due to his extraterrestrial powers and visions of a looming apocalypse, the teenager is the vehicle that could drive a version of The X-Files that’s closer to The Fugitive meets The Incredible Hulk. Wandering the world, a reformed William uses his abilities to help people in need, while also staying one step ahead of the various forces pursuing him.

4. The X-Files: The Next Generation

Skip over the pregnancy and child-rearing years and go directly to the inevitable point where Mulder and Scully’s child follows his or her parents into the FBI, re-opening the dormant X-Files division. The kid’s first case is finding William and persuading him to join the renewed fight for the future in their mother’s name. Bonus: you could have occasional cameos from a grumpy old Mulder, explaining how things were different back in his day.

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