Todd Gilchrist: Celebs Rumors

Todd Gilchrist editor Over three seasons (and a pandemic special) on Showtime, “Couples Therapy” has quietly become a destination for healing for television watchers who are interested in the difficult work of digging into interpersonal relationships — or watching other people do that work, anyway. Through the empathetic, incisive probing of Dr. Orna Guralnik, executive producers Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres have not only explored the complexity of couples’ shared and individual lives, but the essential, often painful and yet invariably revelatory therapeutic process that helps people understand themselves, their partners and the world around them. Following the April 28 premiere of Part 2 of the show’s third season, Variety spoke to Steinberg, Kriegman and Despres about “Couples Therapy” as a mirror for the challenges that many relationship face. In addition to talking about the themes that emerged from the conversations shared with their selected couples this season, the filmmaking trio broke down the process, both logistical and philosophical, that guided them, and examined some of the deeper notions exposed by the series’ format — and by therapy itself.

Todd Gilchrist editor Connie Han has established herself as one of contemporary jazz’s most talented and inventive musicians by combining the precision of her childhood training as a classical pianist with the improvisation, and irrepressible emotion, of her heroes Freddie Hubbard and Kenny Kirklan. Just 27, it’s hard to believe Han released her first album eight years ago, but in that time, she’s built a dedicated following and gained the respect of genre peers through three full-lengths on Mack Avenue Records. Her latest, 2022’s “Secrets of Inanna,” draws upon ancient Sumerian myth not just for its song titles but its thematic underpinnings — a sophisticated foundation emblematic of a sophisticated performer.

Todd Gilchrist editor There are very few movie genres in which Emma Thompson hasn’t left her mark, but she’s established a special pedigree in romantic comedies: from “The Tall Guy” to “Sense and Sensibility” to “Love Actually” to “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” she’s explored love in more ways on screen than most people get to experience in real life. In the romantic entanglements of writer-producer Jemima Khan’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” Thompson’s more of a well-meaning instigator than an active participant, playing a divorcee named Cath who clumsily tries to make a match for her serially-single filmmaker daughter Zoe, played by Lily James. Zoe, meanwhile, is more interested in documenting the arranged (or “assisted,” they rebrand it) marriage agreed to by her childhood friend Kazim (Shazad Latif), not realizing the complicated feelings that his impending nuptials are igniting in her about relationships past, present and future.

Todd Gilchrist editor Music Box Films has acquired North American distribution rights to “Fremont,” Iranian/British Filmmaker Babak Jalali’s follow-up to “Land” and “Radio Dreams.” Jalali’s film, which premiered in the Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT section and later screened at the SXSW Film Festival, tells the story of mid-20s Afghan refugee Donya (played by real-life refugee Anaita Wali Zada) wrestling with complicated feelings about her work as a translator for the U.S. military. “Quiet, tender, and deeply human, ‘Fremont’ hails the arrival of a strikingly talented new performer in Anaita Wali Zada and loudly announces Jalali as a filmmaker whose ability to tell soulful stories with humor and grace demands attention,” states Music Box Films’ Brian Andreotti. “With an impressive launch out of Sundance and SXSW, we’re thrilled to continue momentum and open this film theatrically to a wider US audience later this year.”

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “The Storm,” the April 26 episode of FXX’s “Dave,” now streaming on Hulu. On the FXX show “Dave,” rapper Lil Dicky’s friend and collaborator GaTa is the best friend and hype man we all wish we had — always around to provide for a few words of encouragement and inspiration, but just as available to deliver some plainspoken wisdom when it’s most needed. That the relationship between Dave Burd and Davionte Ganter mirrors the one they have in real life only amplifies the emotional intensity — and the humor — of their moments together on screen. Burd’s own open-book honesty has further encouraged GaTa to open up about his mental health struggles as storylines on the show, leading to several of the most powerful episodes across its three seasons, including this week’s “The Storm.”

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “Wisconsin,” the April 19 episode of FXX’s “Dave,” now streaming on Hulu. Breaking up is never easy, but on television it’s especially difficult — and moreso if audiences fall in love with both parties involved. In Season 1 of FXX’s “Dave,” the relationship between aspiring rapper Lil Dicky (Dave Burd) and his kindergarten teacher girlfriend Ally (Taylor Misiak) offered an essential window not just into who the series’ title character is, but why viewers should love him despite his often deeply narcissistic worldview. After Dave’s failed overture to reconcile with her in Season 2, Ally joins him in Season 3 to capitalize on his “Looking For Love Tour” by embracing her “single girl era” and finding love for herself — if she’s ready for it.

Todd Gilchrist editor Not to be confused with an adaptation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” comedy troupe Broken Lizard’s “Quasi” tells a story that’s truer to the Oxford definition of its title than the 1831 Victor Hugo novel that inspired it. Kevin Heffernan settles uneasily into the director’s seat usually occupied by colleague Jay Chandrasekhar for an underdog story more interested in leveraging funny pronunciations of French words for underwhelming laughs than in creating real characters — much less a visual backdrop that doesn’t look like a second-rate Renaissance Faire.Set in a 13th Century France that narrator and sometime Broken Lizard collaborator Brian Cox helpfully informs us “sucked,” the film centers on Quasimodo (Steve Lemme), a social outcast who works in the torture chambers of King Guy (Chandrasekhar).

Todd Gilchrist editor “Fair to middling” is how Angie Dickinson is feeling this morning as she talks about “Rio Bravo,” the 1959 film that made her a star. “Somebody who says they’re great at 90, you can figure out that they lie a lot.” It’s a line that could have come straight from Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett’s script for the film — and a reminder that Dickinson’s gift for delivery isn’t dependent on working with a brilliant director, though she has many times in her seven-decade career. Dickinson has more then 350 screen credits — an enormous body of work that includes “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 1960 original), “Point Blank” and “Dressed to Kill.” She’s set to appear April 13 at the TCM Film Festival to introduce a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks’ classic Western, whose boys’ club cast of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan she breaks up with that same brisk humor. Ahead of the event, Dickinson speaks with Variety about catching the acting bug after spying Frank Sinatra (later a lifelong friend) on the set of “The Jimmy Durante Show,” working with Brian De Palma, and other highlights from a lifetime of memories.

Todd Gilchrist editor From pre-Code gangster films to Bette Davis blazing a trail for female protagonists to blockbuster super- hero sagas, Warner Bros. Pictures’ output has been synonymous with the most popular stories of the day — and the iconic filmmakers who brought them to life. Since being installed in June 2022, Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy have steadily built upon this legacy that has been the foundation of the studio since its earliest days. “The history of the studio and their approach to filmmaking over the years really lines up with our belief in marrying the right filmmakers with the right IP and the right stories,” Abdy tells Variety. Adds De Luca, “We just wanted to continue that practice of trying to be a good home for the preeminent filmmakers of the day — and then try and find that next generation as well.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Michael Jordan and his signature sneakers have been a fixture of pop culture since 1984, when Sonny Vaccaro convinced the then-rookie (and more importantly, his shrewd mother, Deloris) to sign an industry-changing endorsement deal with sportswear brand Nike. “Air” dramatizes many of the finer points of these real-life events, with Matt Damon playing Vaccaro, Viola Davis as Deloris Jordan and Ben Affleck pulling double duty as director and co-star. But the new film operates less as a tribute to consumerism than as an origin story of one exceptional athlete — and the leather-and-rubber vessel that has become synonymous with his legacy. “I wasn’t all that interested in the business minutiae in the story,” Affleck tells Variety. “It’s really a fable, inspired by these characters and who they represent.”

Todd Gilchrist editor No redemptive stone is left unturned in “On a Wing and a Prayer,” Sean McNamara’s formulaic dramatization of the true events surrounding civilian Doug White’s 2009 emergency landing of a King Air 200 plane carrying his wife and children. Dennis Quaid leads a cast that includes Heather Graham, Jesse Metcalfe, Brett Rice and Rocky Myers through a “story of faith and survival” far less extraordinary than the filmmakers would have you believe, at least when working from a script by Brian Egeston that feels as mechanical as an aircraft instruction manual. Meanwhile, McNamara, best known for directing 2011 faith-based sleeper hit “Soul Surfer,” leans so heavily on the virtue of starting from the truth that he fails to recognize the abundance of elements that make his movie ring false.

Todd Gilchrist editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains light spoilers from the first two episodes of Season 3 of FX’s “Dave,” which premiered on FXX on April 5, and is streaming on Hulu. In Season 3 of “Dave,” the rapper known as Lil Dicky is looking for love, probably in exactly the wrong place: on tour. Liberated from the writer’s block that plagued him throughout Season 2, Dave Burd has gathered his friends and collaborators in a suitably obnoxious pink bus for a nationwide tour — and brought all of his shortcomings and neuroses along for the ride. Series co-creator and “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” alum Jeff Schaffer spoke to Variety the show’s two-episode premiere “Texas” and “Harrison Ave,” about where Dave is headed this season after the “weighted blanket” of recording an album was finally lifted, the mechanics of humiliation in a show about a rapper who talks incessantly about his genitals, and the overall series trajectory as Burd grows older — but not always wiser.

Todd Gilchrist editor At Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch panel, held March 31 at the Sun Valley Film Festival, the first order of business was defining what it means to be a producer, a title — and a role — that encapsulates a number of responsibilities on a film. “The way that I describe it is you’ve got to know a little bit about a lot of things in filmmaking,” said Rachael Fung, whose film “Fremont” later won best narrative film in the festival’s One in a Million category, recognizing features made for less than $1 million. “You’ve got to be able to understand and talk to every single person that touches the film at every single stage. And also it’s about finding those directors and filmmakers and understanding their vision and figuring out the best way to get that to screen.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Joining an illustrious list of honorees that includes Clint Eastwood, Amy Poehler and Geena Davis, Josh Brolin is set to receive the 2023 Sun Valley Film Festival’s Vision Award, which recognizes entertainment veterans for the impact on the industry. Brolin began his career more than 35 years ago as one of the stars of Richard Donner’s “The Goonies,” and he’s since won acclaim for work in films as varied as Ethan and Joel Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” Oliver Stone’s “W.,” Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice,” Joe and Anthony Russo’s “Avengers: Infinity War” and its sequel, “Endgame,” and more. That many of those high-profile roles came to him more than 20 years after becoming an actor isn’t something Brolin resents now — in fact quite the opposite. “That feels amazing as opposed to somebody who came out of the gate and was hugely famous and then had to uphold that for the rest of his career or her career, which never happens,” he tells Variety. Ahead of being feted at Sun Valley, Brolin reflected on the kind of career-overview recognition that comes with the Vision Award and the strange and unpredictable journey he’s taken as an actor, which includes auditions for “Almost Famous,” going from the whiff of “Jonah Hex” to the wow of “The Avengers,” and discovering “for what” as great and enriching motivation in one’s creative choices.

Todd Gilchrist editor Warner Bros. will commemorate its 100th anniversary with a block of programming on Turner Classic Movies starting April 1. TCM will broadcast remastered and newly restored versions of 10 classic Warner Bros. films, each featuring an introduction from a filmmaker or film expert culled from the network’s ongoing partnership with the Film Foundation, a non-profit preservation and exhibition organization. The program coincides with the April 13-16 run of the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. On April 13, a new 4K restoration of 1959’s “Rio Bravo,” Howard Hawks’ classic western starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson, will premiere on TCM and serve as the opening night film of the festival. Dickinson will attend the in-person event, while Martin Scorsese will introduce the film on TCM’s small-screen presentation. Similarly, Warner Bros. will premiere a new 4K restoration of Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden,” starring James Dean, on both the big screen and the network, the latter featuring an introduction by filmmakers Wes Anderson and Joanna Hogg.

Todd Gilchrist editor When Lee Unkrich was 12, he saw “The Shining” for the first time. He remembers less from the screening than what happened shortly afterward, which set in motion a lifelong obsession with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece of horror. On his way to summer camp, Unkrich bought the movie tie-in edition of Stephen King’s novel.

Todd Gilchrist editor Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi admits her enthusiasm for being recognized for the profound social and cultural weight of her output. “Usually producers are kicked to the curb when a movie is released,” she says, laughing.

Todd Gilchrist editor Despite its position as one of the seeming few big-scale “original” sci-fi films to compete with franchises, sequels and reboots for box office real estate, “65” is Frankensteinian at best. Cobbled together from (admittedly some of the best) parts of “Jurassic Park,” “The Descent,” “Armageddon” and more, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ post-“A Quiet Place” level-up too strongly resembles its forebears to break new, much less particularly interesting ground. Yet anchored by another in a series of committed performances from Adam Driver and an ensemble of suitably menacing prehistoric beasts that chase him for just over 90 minutes, Beck and Woods’ adventure delivers requisite thrills even if its creativity seems stuck in the distant cinematic past.

Todd Gilchrist editor It’s impossible to overstate the impact of De La Soul on hip-hop music and its culture — but for decades, their groundbreaking early albums were not widely available, due to a morass of legal complications that kept them out of circulation, and, crucially, off of streaming services. But today, the shackles are off, the samples are cleared (or worked around) and the albums, most notably their galvanizing platinum 1989 debut “3 Feet High and Rising,” can be streamed legally. The group had the great misfortune of being a precedent for now-common sampling laws, and the dense thicket of samples on their albums, and other associated legal dramas, kept their music out of mainstream circulation for many years. But as part of its acquisition of the Tommy Boy Records catalog, New York-based Reservoir Media has resolved the litigious quagmire that surrounded the group’s first six albums, allowing the group to distribute them on streaming platforms (and vinyl) via Chrysalis Records.

Todd Gilchrist editor Even with predecessors such as  “Paths of Glory,” “A Very Long Engagement,” “1917” and of course Lewis Milestone’s 1930 best picture winner of the same name, director Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s bestseller “All Quiet on the Western Front” conveys the meat-grinder brutality — the violence, the blood, and the mud — of trench warfare unlike almost any film in the history of the medium.  “These kids are chewed up by the merciless war machine,” says Berger. “They sign up for this war full of hopes and ideals, but very quickly they realize that they have lost everything in the mud, especially their innocence and their youth.”

Todd Gilchrist editor On Feb. 24, Ray Liotta will receive a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring almost 50 years of amazing work in TV and on film. Following his turn in Jonathan Demme’s 1986 film “Something Wild,” playing Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” was the moment that many moviegoers first discovered his complex, sometimes contradictory charms. When asked about the moment he knew that Liotta was the perfect choice for Hill — a character that was slick, confident, effortlessly charming, but with an edge of danger that made him fearsome and attractive at the same time — Scorsese says it wasn’t during casting, or even on set, but when the two crossed paths ahead of the beginning of production.

Todd Gilchrist editor Boasting an intriguing premise, a compelling ensemble and frequently crisp, handsome filmmaking, Mark Burman’s “Ambush” almost qualifies as an above-average Vietnam-era nailbiter — were it not for the hopelessly below-average performances contributed by the two actors whose names stand tallest in its credits block. Aaron Eckhart and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, usually complex and appealing even in roles as small as these, play characters perched lazily outside the main story while Connor Paolo, Gregory Sims, Jason Genao and others do the narrative heavy lifting that remains after their more sellable co-stars cashed their paychecks. Nevertheless smarter and more entertaining than one might expect from a small-scale, outwardly familiar story like this, “Ambush” feels like a throwback — mostly in a good way — to the ‘Namsploitation films that companies like Cannon churned out in the 1980s, when stories about the war were at their most commercially popular.

Todd Gilchrist editor On Feb. 24, Ray Liotta is set to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just shy of a year since his death at the age of 67. The honor comes the same week as the release of “Cocaine Bear,” the sensational based-on-a-true-story film directed by Elizabeth Banks in which he plays a character she describes as “a gangster … but he’s also an unfit grandpa as well.” That characterization also encapsulates the breadth of his accomplishments on both film and TV as an actor, which range from mobsters and tough guys to loving fathers — and plenty in between. Ahead of the ceremony, Banks tells Variety that she cast Liotta after remembering her experiences working with him on the 2011 film “The Details.”

Todd Gilchrist editor After writing five “Paranormal Activity” movies, directing one (2014’s “The Marked Ones”), and creating inventive new mythologies with “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky,” “We Have a Ghost” is a decidedly different kind of horror project from filmmaker Christopher Landon: you know, for kids. To be more accurate, it’s for families — the kind of story that’s not just scary, but funny, and heartfelt as well, like “E.T the Extra-Terrestrial” and other Amblin movies of the 1980s. “They showed kids in peril and that the world is a dark place, but that you come out on the other side of it,” Landon tells Variety. “We Have a Ghost,” which premieres Feb. 24 on Netflix, was also made for Landon’s own family — not simply his two boys, who are slowly advancing to the age where they can start watching his more terrifying creations, but his late father, actor Michael Landon, who passed away in 1991 at age 54. Now 47, Landon talks about his latest project in the context of his relationship both as a son and as a father himself, and as his pedigree as a horror storyteller deepens, reflects on the kinds of projects he hopes to put out into the world.

Todd Gilchrist editor Though she’s 26, Kathryn Newton has been playing a teenager for a long time — perhaps because she does it so well: with early roles in “Bad Teacher” and “Paranormal Activity 4,” she proved she can bring depth and dimension to whatever her character is struggling with, be it a dyspeptic teacher or an otherworldly entity. But after doing comedy (“Blockers”), drama (HBO’s “Big Little Lies”) and sci-fi-tinged mystery, growing up on screen takes on new meaning in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” where — spoiler alert — she gets to participate in the series’ size-changing action as Cassie Lang, the daughter of Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) Ant-Man. Newton had previously auditioned for another role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and though she didn’t divulge which one, she tells Variety how that experience paved the way for her to play a character who could become part of the next generation of MCU superheroes.

Todd Gilchrist editor Composer Nicolas Godin is part of the creative team responsible for “Fire of Love,” the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Sara Dosa about volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. As one half of the electronic group Air, he’s no stranger to collaboration: between 1995 and 2016, he and partner Jean-Benoit Dunckel released six albums and two soundtracks that sold millions of copies and earned them worldwide accolades as the downtempo counterparts of French contemporaries like Daft Punk. But even if he and Dunckel haven’t recorded anything completely new together since “Music for Museum,” their work for a 2014 art project at France’s Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, the sound they created lives on just as vividly in their solo work, echoing the lush cinematic aesthetic they first premiered on their debut LP “Moon Safari.”

Todd Gilchrist editor Collaboration is vital to filmmaking — no one can make one completely alone. For many of 2022’s screenplay nominees, that process began on the page with a team of individuals whose efforts completed and complemented one another’s to ensure that the story being told was as thoughtful, fully realized and emotionally evocative as possible. But even though “The Fabelmans” cowriter Tony Kushner had previously partnered with Steven Spielberg three times, starting with 2005’s “Munich,” the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright says he was initially unsure how well the duo would work together as co-authors as opposed to handing over a finished script Spielberg would bring to life on the screen.

Todd Gilchrist editor Back in 2012 when Steven Soderbergh directed the first “Magic Mike” based loosely upon star Channing Tatum’s experiences in Tampa, FL, no one could have anticipated the actual empire that the film would inspire: two more films, the latest of which, “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” opened February 10, a live revue in Vegas, a stage musical in London, and a short-lived reality competition series for HBO Max. What’s interesting is the way that all of those ventures seemed to overlap and inspire one another, leading to “Last Dance” focusing on the staging of a musical in London, in some cases transplanting similar routines from that theatrical production to the silver screen.

Todd Gilchrist From “The King of Kings” to “The Northman,” hundreds of films have premiered within the storied walls of the TCL Chinese Theatre, which celebrates its 95th anniversary May 18.Indeed, as early as 1933, the famed movie house appeared in other media as a boilerplate for how a premiere should, and often does, look like. Since then, the theater played itself in dozens of television shows and movies, some of which went on to debut on its iconic screen.

Todd Gilchrist Business managers are more critical than ever in the entertainment industry — and that may be why they are under more scrutiny now than any other time in the history of their profession.Artists and celebrities aren’t just “rich” any longer; they have true eight- or nine- (or more) figure wealth, invested in a multitude of ways to keep them making money whether their careers soar or sink.To them, business managers are a sort of financial quarterback, the individual who pays their mortgages, bills and taxes, outsources their investments to wealth advisers and effectively runs their lives.

Todd Gilchrist Adam Driver’s place in the 2021 pop culture firmament is assured because of his role in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, his four Primetime Emmy nominations and his two Academy Award noms — and being the actor everyone in Hollywood wants to star in their projects.Twenty years earlier, he was a fresh-faced 18-year-old who joined the U.S. Marine Corps, motivated by political and personal bravado after the events of 9/11.

Todd Gilchrist “A great man doesn’t seek to lead; he’s called to it.”This is the line spoken by Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) to his son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) in “Dune,” Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic science-fiction novel. But it also underscores the remarkable journey that Mary Parent, vice chairman of Worldwide Production for Legendary and one of the film’s producers, took to become one of the most successful and respected executives in Hollywood.As its Oct.

Todd Gilchrist Since 1984, the Film Independent Spirit Awards have provided a counterpoint to the Hollywood establishment’s back-patting: a scrappy celebration staged in a tent on the beach, anointing future visionaries rather than formalizing the status of industry titans.

Also Read: 'The Go-Go's' Film Review: Transcendent Rock Doc Examines 1980s Glass-Ceiling ShatterersEllwood’s film breaks the archetypes and describes who the Go-Go’s really were: a tough band of onetime punk-rock misfits whose cleaned-up music was a pop delight, but whose success ended prematurely with infighting and drug addiction.In a Wrap review of the film, Todd Gilchrist wrote, “‘The Go-Go’s’ tackles the seminal all-female ’80s rock band with such honesty, openness and effervescence that it not only rises above that clichéd, almost telegraphed arc but transcends the ranks of other music documentaries to offer a story you desperately want to keep watching, even when you already know where it’s going.”And as someone who absolutely knew