‘A Compassionate Spy’ Review: A Gripping Biography of a Manhattan Project Outlier

“Abbott Elementary’ star Sheryl Lee Ralph reflected on having Sidney Poitier as a director for her film debut “A Piece of the Action” at the premiere Wednesday of the documentary film “Sidney.”“When I met him, he did not let me down,” Sheryl Lee Ralph told TheWrap at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures premiere, noting that at the time she was a “newbie” to the industry. “A lot of people you meet, they let you down.

Former Riverdale and Diary of a Wimpy Kid actor Ryan Grantham has been sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole for 14 years for the 2020 killing of his mother.

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation has activated its disaster-relief program for dues-paying SAG-AFTRA members impacted by Hurricane Fiona.

The Black List has finalized the names of the six writers that will be part of their 2022 Feature Lab and will partake in a hybrid workshop that will include virtual sessions culminating in an in-person weekend intensive in Los Angeles.

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired North American VOD rights to the Emmy-winning documentary When Claude Got Shot. The film premiered at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and made its broadcast television debut in May 2022 on the award-winning PBS documentary anthology series Independent Lens. The documentary will be available to rent and own on North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms on September 27, 2022 through Freestyle Digital Media.

CNN on Thursday denounced the Nicaraguan government after the network’s Spanish-language service CNN en Español was taken off the air there late Wednesday.

Tom “Tommy” McCarthy, executive vice president of post-production facilities, is retiring from his post at Sony Pictures Entertainment after more than three decades. Jon Hookstratten, EVP of Administration & Operations, confirmed the news in a memo adding that Kimberly Jimenez had been promoted to senior vice president of post-production services.

HBO Max, which just became part of Nielsen’s weekly U.S. streaming rankings a few weeks ago, had a coming-out party on the chart for August 22 to 28 thanks to House of the Dragon.

And the Student Academy Awards go to …

The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared legislation that would give news outlets a reprieve from antitrust laws and allow them to band together to negotiate agreements with tech platforms.

EXCLUSIVE: Snagging some of the best and the brightest from Disney, Netflix and Paramount, law firm Yorn Levine is expanding, again.

The NSW Teachers Federation’s and transgender service provider The Gender Centre’s applications to march in the 2023 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) Parade has been rejected.In an open letter to members, NSW Teachers Federation General Secretary Maxine Sharkey revealed “with great disappointment” that their application to march in the 2023 SGLMG Parade was rejected, despite having marched in the last several parades. Sharkey acknowledged the Union’s support for Mardi Gras in the past, “including providing spaces in our conference centre and encouraging members to volunteer as marshals or float participants in Mardi Gras parades. Sharkey stressed, however, that even though the Union would not be marching in the Parade, “we will contribute to the Sydney WorldPride Amplify program.”The Gender Centre health and communications manager Eloise Brook said “We provide over 90 per cent of trans-specific services to the community in NSW,” According to an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, SGLMG received so many applications “far exceeding our total capacity.”This year’s Mardi Gras Parade is part of Sydney WorldPride 2023.Sydney WorldPride 2023 takes place from February 17 to March 5, 2023 with nearly 1 million people expected to take part in the 17-day celebration.© Star Observer 2022 | For the latest in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTIQ) news in Australia, be sure to visit

Marcia Gay Harden said her Tony-winning role as Veronica in “God of Carnage” helped shape the character she plays in the new CBS dramedy “So Help Me Todd.”“‘So Help Me Todd’ is blending the drama with the comedy, and that’s right up my alley,” Harden, 63, told The Post. “It’s truly what I prefer to do.

Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest are celebrating their five-year work anniversary! The hosts spoke to ET’s Rachel Smith about the milestone.  “It seems like not five years,” Ripa says.

LadyGang's Keltie Knight had quite the run-in with George Clooney. ET spoke to the gang — Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jac Vanek, about their new book, , which is filled with fun stories about celeb encounters, first dates and more.«I was once in France for work, and I went the fancy hotel there, and I stumbled upon a party, and I was welcomed in because I looked fabulous, I was wearing a great dress,» Knight began.

Kaitlyn Bristowe has some thoughts on 's season finale. The former franchise lead and one-time host took to Instagram on Thursday to weigh in on the latest season of the show, and revealed the one thing she thinks should've been included during the three-hour-long, live finale.«The show, Erich, and Gabby, had a real opportunity to use their voice and acknowledge Blackface,» Kaitlyn wrote, referring to an old, resurfaced photo of Erich in Blackface.Erich previously apologized for the photo on Instagram, writing in part, «I was naïve to the hurtful implications of my actions to the Black community and those closest to me, and will forever regret my offensive and damaging behavior.»For Kaitlyn, the Blackface controversy could have replaced several portions of the finale that she deemed unnecessary.«I don’t think we needed to read texts from his ex, or set up a fake mansion for Zach,» Kaitlyn wrote, referencing the lengthy discussion of Erich's controversial text messages, as well as the new Bachelor, Zach Shallcross, meeting several women from his season during the live finale.«I think we needed to continue to evolve and show up with that many people watching. Michelle, myself, and Becca were all under the impression this would be addressed,» Kaitlyn added of herself and her fellow former Bachelorettes, Michelle Young and Becca Kufrin, all of whom attended the finale.

This is incredible!

Do we know for sure whether Adam Levine technically cheated on Behati Prinsloo? As in, a physical affair? No. Not yet, anyway.

For Patrick Duffy, the secret behind his lasting romance with Linda Purl is keeping things hot — in the kitchen. The "Dallas" actor and "Happy Days" actress hit it off in 2020 during a group text chat amid the coronavirus pandemic.They enjoyed a slow courtship, or what Purl once described as "a very Victorian process," where they spent weeks talking before sharing a kiss. Duffy revealed that cooking has been essential in their blossoming romance.

Helen Skelton has spoken out on her upcoming time on the hit BBC show Strictly Come Dancing, explaining how it'll be a "good chance" for her family to see her smiling.Th 39 year old TV presenter and actress was the final contestant to be announced to have joined the 2022 line-up of the programme, which kicks off on Friday 23 September after a year-long wait. Speaking out about what made her decide to take part in the show, Helen explained: "I just wanted to do something fun! It was a good chance for my family to see me smiling and it's a fun adventure." She went on to share her excitement as she added: "Anybody who's had anything to do with Strictly will say, the make-up people are the best, the costume people are the best, the set designers are the best, the dancers are the best.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Gianni Amelio was in his late sixties when he came out as gay a few years ago. The announcement preceded the release of his documentary “Happy to Be Different,” which worked toward an overriding sunniness in contemplating the trials and challenges of being gay in Italy at various points in the 20th century. In turning to a gay-themed narrative project, Amelio narrows the focus and dims the mood: “Lord of the Ants” takes as its subject the gay Italian author Aldo Braibanti, and the social and legal opposition he faced over his sexuality in mid-1960s Rome. Solemn, stately and perhaps a little stifled, it’s the kind of queer statement you might expect from a veteran filmmaker who wasn’t until relatively recently out and proud, and is rather poignant for that.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Even the most solidly founded of marriages can be strained and shattered by the death of a child. For handsome, wholesome Japanese couple Taeko and Jiro, however, that tragedy shows up all the fault lines that were already in their young relationship, and that’s before living ghosts of the past show up for both partners. Koji Fukada’s “Love Life” unabashedly embraces melodramatic contrivance in its examination of modern middle-class love tested as much by social prejudices as by personal demons; it just does so with such pallid, polite reserve that its sentimentality never becomes transcendently moving. As such, this agreeable but overlong pic finds the Japanese writer-director still struggling to regain the form of his jolting 2016 Cannes prizewinner “Harmonium.”

Guy Lodge Film Critic Friendships can be as changeable and temperamental and outright dramatic as grand romances, though they tend to get a bland rap on screen — with friends, for most screenwriters, merely convenient constants, there to support protagonists through matters of supposedly more consequence. If substantial platonic relationship studies are rare, ones about men are rarer still. And if that comes down to a social convention rather than a cinematic one, that’s integral to the power and poignancy of Martin McDonagh’s searing “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a film that traces the tortured breakup between two best pals in remote rural Ireland with all the anguish and gravity of the most charged romantic melodrama — its high, unleashed emotions all the more startling in a world where men don’t speak their feelings.

Guy Lodge Film Critic “L’Immensità” is director Emanuele Crialese’s first feature film in 11 years, and only his fifth in a quarter-century: The gifted Italian, best known to international audiences for his splendid, richly felt Ellis Island immigrant saga “Golden Door,” has never been one for unconsidered or impersonal projects. At first glance, then, one might wonder what drew him out of hibernation for a film that, with its trim runtime and small-scale domestic narrative, belies a title that translates as “immensity.” This 1970s-set story of a 12-year-old navigating his gender identity while his mother battles mental health demons is too palpably pained and heartfelt to be called slight, but it’s sensitive and peculiar in ways that feel fragile — occasionally splintered and swamped by an elaborate setpiece, or the outsize star magnetism of arguably its secondary lead, one Penélope Cruz. 

Guy Lodge Film Critic While waiting to pick up five-year-old Leila from judo practice, personable 40-ish schoolteacher Rachel introduces herself to another parent as Leila’s stepmom, before backtracking to awkwardly correct herself. Later, when a kindly stranger on a train remarks on the resemblance between the two, Rachel doesn’t bother clarifying, merely accepting the benign compliment. Her relationship to Leila is both unremarkably simple and complicated by an absence of clear language for it: She’s dating the girl’s father, and the attachment between woman and child has grown perhaps stronger than the relationship on which it depends. It’s the kind of delicate everyday situation that rarely occupies the centre of a film, and in the superb “Other People’s Children,” writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski negotiates it with warm intelligence and compassion.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Rather like the arc of the moral universe, “Argentina, 1985” is long, but bends toward justice. Effectively dramatizing the country’s landmark Trial of the Juntas, history’s first instance of a civilian justice system convicting a military dictatorship, Santiago Mitre’s broad, sprawling, heart-on-sleeve courtroom saga may draw from the same nightmarish period of history that has informed much of Argentine cinema’s most essential, haunting works — from 1985’s Oscar-winning “The Official Story” to last year’s “Azor” — but eschews any subtle arthouse stylings for a storytelling sensibility as robustly populist as anything by Sorkin or Spielberg. Small wonder, then, that Amazon Studios has boarded a film clearly aiming to be both a domestic smash and an international crossover hit — buoyed by the reliable star power of Ricardo Darín, his signature suaveness tempered by a walrus mustache and boxy ‘80s frames as Julio Strassera, the dogged prosecutor who took on this charged, against-the-odds case. Though a warmly received premiere in competition at Venice will set it on the right path, “Argentina, 1985” is, appropriately enough, a people’s film about people’s justice, balancing tear-jerking historical catharsis with touches of droll domestic comedy, and set to draw crowds on enthusiastic word of mouth.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Six decades into a career of over 40 films, the last thing you might request of a new feature from 92-year-old documentarian Frederick Wiseman is that it surprise us. Yet after a run of expansive, richly process-oriented observations of mostly American institutions and communities, his new film, “A Couple,” upends expectations of his work in what feels an almost mirthfully perverse number of ways. For starters, it’s laser-focused on just one person, not a heaving collective of human labor and activity. It’s short — very much so, in fact, barely stretching past an hour. Also, lest we be burying the lede, it’s not a documentary. Wiseman’s first ever narrative feature sees him collaborating with French actor-writer Nathalie Boutefeu on a biopic of sorts: a portrait of Leo Tolstoy’s anguished wife Sophia, dramatizing her marital dissatisfaction and psychic pain with with a lyrical, literate ear.

As a child growing up in the United States, you’re taught that betraying the country is a terrible act, punishable by death. Every morning, in most public schools, you’re forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which overtly puts your patriotism at the forefront of the day’s events.

Given the fragile state of world peace at the moment, it seems like a good time for the latest film from Hoop Dreams director Steve James, a piece of little-known history from the cold war that could potentially have devastating consequences today. Sadly, James’ Venice Film Festival out of competition title A Compassionate Spy just doesn’t deliver the drama and tension you might expect from the high-stakes story of a mild-mannered American scientist who passed sensitive nuclear secrets to the Russians out of a mixture of idealism and naivety.

Guy Lodge Film Critic The political activism of pop stars is, as a rule, on the restrained side. Those who make their allegiances clear still tend to keep all factions in their fanbases sweet by limiting divisive rhetoric, or filtering their politics through broadly palatable humanitarian causes; those who speak a little more frankly still risk the wrath of the public, the internet and their record labels alike. Yet for Ugandan singer Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu — better known to his adoring fans as Bobi Wine — there’s both everything and nothing to lose by getting a little more directly involved in national politics than most such celebrities would dare. Entering a presidential election against corrupt, long-ruling incumbent Yoweri Museveni is, he knows, both a folly and a necessary symbolic stand — a certain path to honorable defeat that “Bobi Wine: Ghetto President” documents with angry urgency and bitter gallows humor.

Manori Ravindran International Editor High-profile espionage cases in the post-war period often invoke the grisly fate of the Rosenbergs, the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed by electric chair for sharing atomic secrets with the Soviet Union in peace time. But in the new documentary “A Compassionate Spy,” filmmaker Steve James tells the incredible story of Manhattan Project scientist Ted Hall, who shared classified nuclear secrets with Russia — and got away with it. The Participant and Kartemquin Films-produced documentary, which has its world premiere in Venice on Sept. 2, is one of a number of films at this year’s festival that tackle the topic of nuclear disaster: Projects from Noah Baumbach’s feature adaptation of Don DeLillo’s “White Noise” through to Oliver Stone’s on-the-nose documentary “Nuclear” all contemplate some aspect of our nuclear past and future.

Guy Lodge Film Critic “Gigi & Nate” begins with two leaps. The first is out of terror, when Gigi, a capuchin monkey at a sad-sack roadside petting zoo, tries to steer clear of her “caretaker.” The second is the sweet leap of boy-joy that 17-year-old Nate Gibson takes off a rocky ledge and into a pond. In this amiable, if unnecessarily manipulative, movie about the human-animal bond — as well as the different forms resilience can take — that fateful second leap will lead the young man and the monkey to each other.Gigi is rescued by a woman who works for an organization that provides service animals to people with disabilities.