Police were called to the scene of “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” in Glasgow, Scotland, as children burst into tears when the “immersive experience” promised in AI advertisements turned out to be a sparsely decorated warehouse.
A24 and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair director Jane Schoenbrun have teamed up for a new horror movie called I Saw the TV Glow, which JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray had the chance to see at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (you can read his 5/10 review at THIS LINK). Yesterday, A24 took to social media to unveil a poster for the film, and to promise that a trailer would be online today. True to their word, they have already dropped the trailer online, and you can check it out in the embed above! I Saw the TV Glow is scheduled to reach theatres on May 3rd.
Written and directed by Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow tells the story of two teenage outcasts who bond over their shared love of a scary television show. However, the boundary between TV and reality begins to blur after it is mysteriously canceled.
Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Dominion) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music) play the teenage outcasts and are joined in the cast by Helena Howard (The Wilds), Danielle Deadwyler (The Harder They Fall), Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Ian Foreman (The Holiday Switch), Michael C. Maronna (The Adventures of Pete & Pete), Conner O’Malley (Palm Springs), Emma Portner (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), and Danny Tamberelli (also of The Adventures of Pete & Pete).
I Saw the TV Glow is being produced by Emma Stone through her company Fruit Tree, along with her Fruit Tree partners Dave McCary and Ali Herting. Sam Intili and Smudge Films’ Sarah Winshall are producing as well. A24 handled the financing and will also be handling the worldwide distribution.
Bumbray said in his review that the film is “so experimental that it feels like a half-baked attempt at a genre version of Inland Empire-era David Lynch.” Which, I have to admit, definitely lowered my interest in this one.
What did you think of the trailer for I Saw the TV Glow? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen when it’s released in May? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Reacher‘s Alan Ritchson has soared to fame since getting cast in the Prime Video series based on the Lee Child crime novels. The actor has been gaining even more notoriety as he boasts an even bigger physique this season and has displayed a comic book-accurate superhero physique that prompted fans to consider him to get cast as a new Batman. While Batman could still be a possibility, one superhero role he had unfortunately missed out on was Thor, which now is synonymous with Chris Hemsworth. According to Variety, Ritchson had auditioned for the 2011 film Thor as the Marvel Cinematic Universe started moving their shared universe train.
Ritchson admits he was banking on his looks and thought his appearance was enough to land him the lead role in the Kenneth Branagh-directed MCU movie. The Reacher star explained, “I didn’t take it seriously. I was like, ‘They’ll throw me the part if I look like the guy; nobody really cares about acting.’” The casting people for the film would show him otherwise as they told his reps that, although he had a great look, he didn’t have “the craft” down. Chris Hemsworth ultimately got the role, and Ritchson’s career path would take a different trajectory. At that point in his career, Ritchson had appeared as a superhero, playing Aquaman in Smallville and he would go on to be in a big franchise as he did the voice and motion capture for Raphael in the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and its sequel, which he professes were both nightmares to make.
Ritchson would eventually land a comedic part in his breakout role as Thad Castle in the Spike TV sitcom Blue Mountain State. He also assumed after Blue Mountain State premiered “that there would be a cornucopia of comedies for me to choose from,” but he admits he was not receiving offers. Flash forward to the success of the show Reacher and Ritchson says, “I had about 50 offers the weekend after Season 1 of Reacher opened. I knew my life had changed.” He has since appeared in movies like Fast X and will be starring in the upcoming Guy Ritchie film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.
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PLOT: An astronaut realizes that the marriage he left behind might not be waiting for him when he returns to Earth.
Desperate to fix things with his wife, he is helped by a mysterious ancient creature he finds hiding in the bowels of his ship.
REVIEW: It should no longer be surprising when Adam Sandler stars in dramatic roles. When Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love was released in 2002, Sandler was best known for films like Big Daddy and Little Nicky. Even though Sandler still releases broad comedies like Hubie Halloween and Murder Mystery, the actor has proven his talents in movies like Uncut Gems and Hustle. Adam Sandler’s latest dramatic project is Spaceman, a science-fiction tale set in the void of the solar system. Partnered with Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan and acclaimed director Johan Renck, Spaceman is another solid performance from Adam Sandler that once again proves how good he is given the right material. While the movie itself may not be as good as some of Sandler’s aforementioned dramatic projects, it is still an interesting story about isolation and love.
Based on the novel Spaceman of Bohemia, the film opens with Jakub Procházka (Adam Sandler) aboard a vessel on its way past Jupiter to investigate the mysterious Chopra Cloud, a nebula of purple particles that appeared in the sky. An experienced astronaut for the Czech space agency, Jakub has been alone aboard his ship for over one hundred and thirty days. The isolation has begun to eat at Jakub, including a rattling toilet that has prevented him from sleeping. Jakub communicates with Peter (Kunal Nayyar) and his commanding officer, Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini), but has not heard from his wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Unbeknownst to Jakub, Lenka has decided to end their marriage despite being pregnant with their child. As Jakub contends with his loneliness, he reminisces about his love for Lenka as he heads toward the goal of his mission. That is when Hanus appears. Voiced by Paul Dano, Hanus is an alien who looks like a giant spider and can read Jakub’s thoughts.
The introduction of the alien creature initially frightens Jakub, but throughout the film, he forms a friendship with the spider that alleviates his isolation similar to how Tom Hanks had Wilson the volleyball in Cast Away. Hanus probes Jakub’s mind which allows the astronaut to question the decisions that led him to this journey and away from Lenka. On Earth, Lenka struggles with her isolation as she shuts off communication with Jakub even as she confides in Zdena (Lena Olin) about her feelings. The shifting focus between Jakub in space and Lenka on Earth allows for Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan to explore the relationship between their characters through memories and dream-like visions. The surreal and ethereal look of these scenes is the most beautiful part of Spaceman which is anchored in Cold War-era designs for the Earth-based scenes at the Czech mission control and homes of the various characters. The technology on display appears archaic and accentuates the slightly odd look and tone of the film, echoing a similar feel in the film Swiss Army Man which, coincidentally, starred Paul Dano.
Clocking in at an hour and forty-seven minutes, Spaceman employs very deliberate pacing rooted in softly-spoken dialogue that at times comes across as rigid or wooden. I initially found the delivery of the dialogue to feel like it was being translated from a foreign language but this eventually transitions to the scenes taking on an almost poetic quality. Almost everyone aside from Adam Sandler boasts an accent of one kind or another and Sandler’s delivery occasionally borders on a vague European lilt. The European sensibility of the film gives Spaceman a feel unlike any other Sandler project to date, but it often feels like it is masking a weaker film by wrapping it in quirkiness to hide a lack of depth. The middle of act of the film often languishes in repeated moments that drive a wedge between Jakub and his alien friend before bringing them back together as he realizes more about himself. Adam Sandler spends so much of Spaceman alone or acting opposite a CGI creation that the film serves as a showcase for his acting abilities that he struggles to meet. Adam Sandler is quite good in this film but a stronger actor likely would have been a better fit.
Screenwriter Colby Day does not deviate much from the source material, keeping the setting, names, and tone of Jaroslav Kalfar’s novel. This allows director Johan Renck to dive into visual tricks he has not explored much to date. Renck, a veteran music video director, has helmed numerous television series like Bates Motel, VIkings, Bloodline, Breaking Bad, and Halt and Catch Fire but his critical acclaim came after he made 2019’s HBO series Chernobyl. By following up on that stunning project with Spaceman, Renck gets to blend stylistic elements from his music video work with a feature film format. Renck balances out the visual magic of this project, born from cinematographer Jakob Ihre, with a haunting score from composer Max Richter. The music in Spaceman is something quite stirring and when that is played against the dreamy tone of the images on screen, this film feels grander than it actually is. So much of the movie feels like an experiment for Renck as a director that it sacrifices the balance between being an edgy indie film with a mainstream crowdpleaser.
Believe it or not but Spaceman is the weirdest movie of Adam Sandler’s career. As a science fiction drama, the film feels like an arthouse twist on Interstellar and Solaris but through the lens of a filmmaker too reliant on familiar tropes of the genre. Spaceman wants to say something prescient about the human condition and how it relates to loneliness and isolation. But, because it wallows in an existential sadness where the energy of the characters never rises above sombre, the movie is just too slow to garner any momentum. Spaceman is not a bad movie but it wastes an opportunity to say something substantial. While it could have benefited from a livelier edit, Spaceman is still an endearing watch with a great performance from Adam Sandler and a heartbreaking one from the always-excellent Carey Mulligan. This movie will not go down as one of Sandler’s defining performances, but it will certainly be an interesting footnote along the way.
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Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched earlier this year to critical acclaim and sales records the series hasn’t seen before, so suffice to say, it’s kind of a big deal. The Like A Dragon games have become a renowned series over the years for a number of things: an incredible attention to detail, great…
Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth launched earlier this year to critical acclaim and sales records the series hasn’t seen before, so suffice to say, it’s kind of a big deal. The Like A Dragon games have become a renowned series over the years for a number of things: an incredible attention to detail, great…
We know that the world of Willy Wonka is one of “pure imagination”, but this is ridiculous! A supposed Willy Wonka experience in Scotland is getting worse reviews than the chocolatier’s actual child-killing factory, going viral as a disaster that calls to mind the cheese sandwiches at Fyre Fest.
Check out the website’s official description and some pictures from the Willy Wonka event below:
“Dive into the whimsical of Willy’s Chocolate Experience!, a place where chocolate dreams become reality. Book your adventure now and embark on a journey filled with wondrous creations and enchanting surprises at every turn!” This was not the case…actually, I’m not even sure there were even turns!
Pics from their website https://t.co/5TpyuBwzUo pic.twitter.com/0JXjQoGDOa
— Culture Crave
(@CultureCrave) February 27, 2024
As you can see in the promo, the Willy Wonka experience promised a lot that they just didn’t deliver on. And we’re not just talking about chocolate, but “catgacating”, “cartchy tuns” and even “exarserdray lollipops.” And yet not one instance of catgacating was found!
That might seem like gibberish, but it might actually be the result of artificial intelligence, meaning it’s possible that an actual human being lost out on work because of that “writing”. Paul Connell, the comedian and actor who was cast as Willy Wonka recounted his nightmare, saying, “The script was 15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me just monologuing these mad things…The bit that got me was where I had to say [regarding a fictional villain], ‘There is a man we don’t know his name. We know him as the Unknown. This Unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.’…They even misspelled my contract but I do have a legally binding ‘Coontract [sic]’. But I stayed up all night learning it thinking this would make sense in the dress rehearsal when I see all the tech.” Taking a look at some of these pictures, “tech” might be short of “technicality.”
According to The New York Times, treats promised to the little ones were anything but, with one attendee saying his “children got two jelly beans each…And then they got a half a cup of lemonade.” He added that there were a handful of chairs for people to sit in and a “half-inflated bouncy castle.”
The event was held in Glasgow in a location called the Box Hub Warehouse, one Google review for which showcases a shoe sale. No, tickets are not refundable.
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Working with divas who think they’re better than the rest of the people on set can never be easy. Standing up to them must be even harder. But Rebecca Ferguson has done both, revealing that she was berated in front of the crew but retaliated by telling them to “f off.”
Speaking on Reign with Josh Smith, Rebecca Ferguson remembered, “I did a film with an absolute idiot of a co-star. This person would literally look at me and look at the whole crew and say, ‘You call yourself an actor? This is what I have to work with?’…And I think I was so vulnerable and uncomfortable that I got screamed at. But because this person was number one on a call sheet, there was no safety net for me. So no one had my back. And I would cry walking off set.”
Rebecca Ferguson added that at one point she had to stand up for herself – and so she did. “I looked at this person and I said, ‘You can F off. I’m gonna work towards a tennis ball. I never want to see you again.’ And then I remember the producers came up and said, ‘You can’t do this to number one. We have to let this person be on set.’”
Rebecca Ferguson’s filmography isn’t terribly expansive yet, so it may not be all that hard to begin to deduce who this unnamed co-star might be. She already said it wasn’t Mission: Impossible lead Tom Cruise or The Greatest Showman’s Hugh Jackman, so they’re out. She also doesn’t say whether it’s a male or female, coyly saying “this person.” But I’m putting the odds on a male… (it sounds like she’s talking about a guy, but who knows?) So, who do we have to consider that would have been number one on the call sheet for at least one day? Some have speculated Michael Fassbender, but by all accounts, they got along just fine making The Snowman and did plenty of interviews together. Others have pointed to Hugh Grant on Florence Foster Jenkins or Ewan McGregor on Doctor Sleep, although there might not be enough to support that. She and McGregor did many interviews together as well as a few talk shows where they were all smiles, and no one has ever accused McGregor of anything like this. However, the “tennis ball” comment does perhaps narrow it down to a CGI spectacle like Hercules…but Dwayne Johnson is known to be most professional on a set.
But the most cited name on social media regarding who Rebecca Ferguson’s mysterious and volatile co-star is Rogue Nation/Fallout‘s Alec Baldwin…I don’t know, he always seems so calm…At the same time, this seems like something Tom Cruise would have shut down immediately, knowing how seriously he takes the environment. We may never know, but that can’t stop us from speculating.
Who do you think Rebecca Ferguson is talking about? Give us your best name and supporting evidence in the comments section below.
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The upcoming Michael Jackson biopic is currently in production, but where would the iconic singer be without the Jackson 5? Lionsgate, along with Universal Pictures International, announced that eight actors have been cast to play Michael Jackson’s brothers in the Jackson 5, with four actors playing the younger versions of Jermaine, Marlon, Tito, and Jackie, and the other four taking over the roles as the characters age.
Jayden Harville and Jamal R. Henderson will play the younger and older versions of Jermaine Jackson, Jaylen Lyndon Hunter and Tre Horton will play Marlon, Judah Edwards and Rhyan Hill will play Tito, and Nathaniel Logan McIntyre and Joseph David-Jones will play Jackie.
“The truly epic nature of this film required a total of ten actors with the talent to portray the Jackson 5 through the years,” said producer Graham King in a statement. “I’m thrilled to bring this extraordinary group of actors and performers to worldwide audiences in this film.“
The rest of the cast includes Nia Long as Katherine Jackson, Colman Domingo as Joe Jackson, Miles Teller as long-time lawyer John Branca, Juliano Krue Valdi as young Michael Jackson, and Jackson’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson as the adult version of Michael. Antoine Fuqua is directing from a script by John Logan. We got our first look at Jaafar Jackson in costume as his famous uncle earlier this month, and the likeness is pretty damn uncanny. The production has the cooperation of the Jackson estate, which means that they’ll be able to use his music, but it remains to be seen how much of the famous singer’s troubles will be addressed.
“Michael will bring audiences a riveting and honest portrayal of the brilliant yet complicated man who became the King of Pop,” reads the official description. “The film presents his triumphs and tragedies on an epic, cinematic scale — from his human side and personal struggles to his undeniable creative genius, exemplified by his most iconic performances. As never before, audiences will experience an inside look into one of the most influential, trailblazing artists the world has ever known.” Michael will hit theaters on April 18, 2025.
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Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building has never had any trouble assembling an all-star cast, and that trend continues with the new season. It was announced today that Emmy-winning eyebrow enthusiast Eugene Levy has joined the cast of season 4 of Only Murders in the Building.
Details of Eugene Levy’s role in the fourth season are being kept under wraps, but it’s said it will be recurring. Other new additions to the cast include Molly Shannon, who will be playing a high-powered Los Angeles businesswoman, and Eva Longoria, whose character is being kept under wraps. Meryl Streep, who was featured in the last season, will also be returning. Eugene Levy and Martin Short go way back, all the way to SCTV, so it should be a treat to see them reunite on season 4 of Only Murders in the Building.
Only Murders in the Building was created by Steve Martin, Dan Fogelman, and John Hoffman. The first season followed three strangers (Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez) who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one when a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building.
Here’s a SPOILER ALERT if you’re not caught up. The last season of Only Murders in the Building ended with the unexpected murder of Sazz (Jane Lynch), Charles-Haden Savage’s (Martin) stunt double from his time starring on Brazzos. As she dies, she tries to write something with her fingers, but we’re not sure exactly what it is.
“We thought to keep it as oblique as possible for now, just to keep our options open for the next season, but it feels very in her character to send a message,” series co-showrunner John Hoffman explained to THR last year. “She’s been trying to do it to Charles throughout the season. She’s hinting to him in episode five that she’s picking up some ham radio chatter, certainly, right when she arrives in the finale, she’s saying, ‘Can I grab you for a few minutes? It’s a little sensitive.’ So, there’s something on her mind and something she may know but to be found out.“
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