‘Shining Vale’ Sends Courteney Cox Down a Haunted Rabbit Hole as Funny as It Is Chilling: TV Review

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterOn the heels of a rare public gaffe for The Walt Disney Company — regarding the media giant’s silence over Florida’s incendiary “Don’t Say Gay” law — the GLAAD Media Awards used its annual Los Angeles awards show to caution the rest of Hollywood about the perils of ignoring the LGBT community.“Don’t wait until you’re in the hot seat,” the media watchdog’s president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis bluntly told the crowd at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday. “There’s no more time to sit on the sidelines.

Holly Jones An eerily quaint and picturesque Galician town sets the scene for a chilling high-profile murder in “Rapa,” the highly anticipated follow-up to Spain’s Movistar Plus hit “Hierro.”After coming to the aid of bloodied Mayor Amparo Seoane (Mabel Rivera), lone witness and stymied professor Tomás (Javier Cámara, star of Almodóvar’s “Talk to Her”) becomes obsessed with her murder case and forms an unlikely bond with unyielding Civil Guard Sargent, Maite (Mónica López, “Hierro”). As word of the crime shakes the town, a community’s secrets rise to the surface.Produced by Movistar Plus in conjunction with Portocabo, led by Alfonso Blanco, and expertly directed by Jorge Coira, the six-part series offers up complex and riveting plot twists as questions arise regarding the salient nature between victim and perpetrator.

Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba has issued a defiant message after the Reds again dropped two points, this time against Leicester.

John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentThe latest from Belgium’s Eyeworks Film & TV Drama and director Wouter Bouvijn – who teamed on Canneseries hits “The Twelve” and “Red Light” – “1985,” sold by Studiocanal, works on multiple levels as a coming-of-age series.Two young Gendarmarie police recruits, Marc and Franky, and his sis Vicky, a law student and pirate radio DJ, move to Brussels. They are soon caught up in police corruption – insider drug trading, heavy fire arms robbery – and the rise of  the brutal Nijvel gang.Created by Willem Wallyn (“Albatros”), this is the coming-of-age story of three unbreakable friends loss of innocence, and that of a nation in its leaders.It is also an origins tale, of the forging of the modern age. Belgium’s distrust of its forces of law and order and political class rankles to this day, shared now with other countries, as does its politics of confrontation which Vicky denounces in an on-air monolog in Ep.

Pete Davidson was back on Saturday Night Live tonight after taking a break to shoot his latest movie. His first bit upon return was a music video, in which he rapped about movies getting too long.

As tonight’s edition of Weekend Update came to an end, Saturday Night Live paid tribute to Taylor Hawkins, the longtime Foo Fighters drummer who was found dead in a hotel room in Bogota, Colombia on March 25, aged 50. While 10 substances were found in his system at time of death according to a “forensic medical study,” including THC, tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines and opioids, an official cause of death has not yet been disclosed.

returned over the weekend with a whole lot of material, thanks to Will Smith's actions at this year's Oscars.Many expected the slap heard 'round the world to be the primary focus of the night's cold open — although the show instead opted to for politically-focused sketch that only touched on the slap, via James Austin Johnson's Donald Trump.However, first-time host Jerrod Carmichael made sure to address the elephant in the room in his hilarious debut monologue. Additionally, Michael Che and Colin Jost didn't hold back while mocking the controversy during Weekend Update. And then there was the sketch that took fans back to the night in question with an up close and personal look at what it was like for the people around Smith during the altercation.Here's a roundup of how this week's dealt with the largest pop culture news story in recent memory.Carmichael plays an Oscars seat filler who is overjoyed to be sitting next to his Hollywood hero, Will Smith.

The stars are stepping out for the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards!

Saved by the Bell, Eternals, and Hacks are among the honorees feted at the 33rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards held in Los Angeles on Saturday.

It was probably inevitable — Saturday Night Live did its own interpretation of the altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars. The skit did not show the slap, instead focusing on Will Smith, played by Chris Redd, who is having a conversation with a seat filler, played by host Jerrod Carmichael, during Chris Rock’s speech.

Tonight on SNL, Weekend Update‘s anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che made every Will Smith joke they’d been holding onto over the course of the past week, following the Oscar winner’s slap of Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterThough embattled by a staff and talent revolt over its stance on incendiary policies toward trans youth, the Walt Disney Company pulled off a significant win at the 2022 GLAAD Media Awards on Saturday.The entertainment giant’s Marvel Studios division won the media watchdog’s prize for outstanding wide release film, for Chloé Zhao’s “Eternals.”  As the first Disney superhero tale to feature a same sex couple — in “Atlanta” star Bryan Tyree Henry and Haaz Sleiman — the tentpole film was widely praised for its depiction of loving queer parents.In the television space, Peacock’s unexpected comedy gem “Saved by the Bell,” a reboot of the ”90s classic, took outstanding comedy series. “Hacks,” an LGBTQ jewel box from HBO Max, took outstanding new TV series.

Australia is set to elect a new government in May 2022. The country’s peak national LGBTQI health organisation, LGBTIQ+ Health Australia (LHA), has called upon the major political parties and independent candidates to spell out their commitment and plans to improve the health and well being of the community. “LGBTIQ+ communities face significant barriers to improved health because of stigma and discrimination,” Nicky Bath, CEO, LHA, said in a statement. “All members of LGBTIQ+ communities, including those who live at the intersections of additional marginalised identities and experiences, can no longer be left behind.

Gary Neville heaped praise on Manchester United midfielder Fred, lauding the Brazilian as a bright spark in a difficult season at Old Trafford.

Freddie Gibbs has enlisted Rick Ross for a new collaborative single, sharing a punchy cut titled ‘Ice Cream’.The track was produced by Kenny Beats, and is built around a sample used by Wu-Tang Clan‘s RZA and Raekwon for the latter’s 1995 single, also titled ‘Ice Cream’, which appeared on his ‘Only Built 4 Cubin Linx’ LP.Gibbs and Ross pay homage to Raekwon’s ‘Ice Cream’ throughout their cut, notably in the accompanying music video. In it, we see Gibbs riding around in an ice cream van, mirroring footage from Raekwon’s ’90s clip.

If you were expecting to hear a lot about Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars on March 27, tonight’s Saturday Night Live cold open didn’t have a lot to offer.

“Thank you. Thank you very, very much. I’m not going to talk about it,” actor-comedian Jerrod Carmichael said up top, in his first opening monologue as host of SNL. “I want to be clear up top: I’ve talked about it enough, kept talking about it, kept thinking about it. I don’t want to talk about it, and you can’t make me talk about it.”

Jerrod Carmichael made his hosting debut on this weekend and used his monologue to address the elephant in the room — the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscars slap, and the endless social dialog that has erupted from it.And, to show just how endless the debate and controversy has been, he doesn't, not once, need to say Smith or Rock's name.«I'm not going to talk about it. I want to be clear up top. I talked about it enough. Kept talking about it.

The stars of This Is Us are stepping out to promote the final few episodes of their hit show!

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at LargeIf you were expecting this week’s “Saturday Night Live” to kick off with a sketch parodying the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap at the Oscars, you may have been disappointed by the cold open. The slap was indeed mentioned, but it was just one of several topics brought up as the show once again turned to a Fox News parody to lead the episode.This week, it was another go at “Fox and Friends,” featuring hosts Steve Doocy (played by Alex Moffat), Ainsley Earhardt (Heidi Gardner) and Brian Kilmeade (Mikey Day). The hosts welcomed Clarence Thomas (Kenan Thompson) and wife Ginni Thomas (Kate McKinnon) — whose support of the January 6 attempted coup has become a lightning rod for scandal.

Henry Golding is hitting the slopes with his family!

Courteney Cox believes that women “go through a lot” once they reach a certain age.

Shining Vale, Starz’ new horror comedy co-created by Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe) and Jeff Astrof (Trial & Error), that’s the point. Leaning into clichés in order to answer the question “What if The Shining was a sitcom starring Courteney Cox?”, this eight-part series (served in bingeable, thirty-minute morsels) juggles jump scares and jokes at a rate of knots, whilst trying to dissect the ways in which women’s trauma is so often either demonised or dismissed out of hand.

There’s so much overlong TV out there in the streaming era, but the Starz horror-comedy “Shining Vale” has to be one of this year’s most damning, counter-intuitive examples. Because it needs to take up so much running time, its few good ideas about characters, alive and dead, lose much of their impact.

Scott Huver Between “Friends” and the “Scream” franchise, Courteney Cox knew that playing both comedy and horror were well within her wheelhouse — but something told her that the new Starz series “Shining Vale” would test her skills in unprecedented ways.“Such a dramatic role that also was comedic was a balance that I hadn’t played in quite this way,” Cox said at Monday’s series premiere at TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, where she was joined by co-stars Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino, Judith Light and Rob Morrow, as well as a familiar face from her TV past, Lisa Kudrow. “It’s a part that I’m just not used to being able to challenge, and it got me really excited about acting again.” “Shining Vale” was conceived by co-creators Sharon Horgan (”Catastrophe”) and former “Friends” writer Jeff Astrof as a comedic riff on “The Shining.” Cox plays Pat, a “lady porn” novelist struggling with writers’ block and depression who, after cheating on her husband (Kinnear), seeks a fresh start by moving her dysfunctional family into a new home with an increasingly unsettling vibes – and some unexpected ethereal occupants, like Sorvino’s perfectly put-together 50s-era spirit.Astrof said he immediately fell for the concept floated by Horgan.