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Marvel's "Thunderbolts" is the rare MCU movie to truly be about something, and that something is mental health. Among the many tormented characters in the film, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Bob Reynolds (Lewis Pullman) are the clearest examples of a struggle with darkness. Yelena is dealing with a metaphorical inner void caused by her Black Widow upbringing, assassin career, and personal losses. Bob's Void, on the other hand, is capitalized — an inner darkness manifest, cultivated by a lifetime of bad cards and wrong turns, and made to bloom by Valeria Allegra de Fontaine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) shady superhero experiments.

The multi-faceted masterwork that is Bob/The Sentry/The Void might be many fans' first exposure to Pullman's talents, but he's already worked in many interesting projects before "Thunderbolts*," from appearing as Lt. Bob Floyd in "Top Gun: Maverick" to playing Rhett Abbott in the Prime Video drama "Outer Range." As...

Movies have a way of exposing harsh truths, especially when it comes to the American Dream. Work hard, hustle and success will follow. But what happens when the dream is nothing more than a rigged game, designed to keep people chasing an illusion? In a world where only the ruthless survive, the rules don’t matter – only the results.

That’s the reality of Glengarry Glen Ross, a film that takes capitalism’s promises and exposes them as hollow lies. A profanity-laced black comedy, it follows desperate salesmen clawing for survival in an industry that treats them as disposable. But despite an all-star cast and satirical dialogue, the movie bombed at the box office. Over time, however, it has become a cult classic, celebrated for its intense critique of ambition, deception, and the cost of playing the game.

Glengarry Glen Ross Is a Forgotten Cult Classic

Based on David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play,...

Since the success of old-school sitcoms like I Love Lucy and All In the Family, comedy has proven one of TV's most successful genres, with some shows running for over a decade. As impressive as the genre's longevity is, some audiences prefer shorter series that they can enjoy across a single day. A shorter show gives the audience something easy to digest, and some series surpass the quality of long sitcoms in a mere six episodes.

Comedy shows come in a range of formats, tones and styles, from dark comedy to witty satire and everything in between. While the classic weekly sitcom formula is still king, sometimes more can be said with less, and these shorter shows allow more focus on character building. Long shows always risk falling into a repetitive cycle of unoriginal stories, while compressing more into less forces the best out of writers.

Police Squad! Spawned the...

Author Joseph Heller's 1961 novel Catch-22 ironically created the perfect example of the very paradox with which it shares its namesake. The book etched a legacy that demanded further exploration through future adaptations, and yet, that same legacy was nearly impossible to uphold, begging the question of whether any adaptation could truly do justice to its original predecessor. Enter director Mike Nichols, who (with the help of screenwriter Buck Henry) translated Heller's savage critique of war and bureaucracy from page to screen in 1970.

The film adaptation of Catch-22 boasts an ensemble cast that includes Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Richard Benjamin, Art Garfunkel, Bob Newhart, Anthony Perkins (of Psycho fame), Martin Sheen, Jon Voight, and Orson Welles. Under the direction of Nichols, these actors deliver what's still considered by many to be one of the darkest and most compelling World War II satires ever brought to the silver screen.

Related Every Clint Eastwood War Movie,...

As Hollywood adjusted to the whims and desires of Baby Boomer moviegoers heading into the 1970s, studios found themselves making fewer and fewer Westerns. Long one of the most reliably profitable genres, younger viewers who'd come of age rebelling against much of what their parents held dear were turned off by this continued mythologizing of how America pursued its manifest destiny. They rejected John Wayne, but turned out for Italian-produced Spaghetti Westerns, especially those starring Clint Eastwood. As a result, the only semi-traditional Hollywood Westerns Boomers would embrace tended to feature Eastwood in the starring role (e.g. "High Plains Drifter" and "The Outlaw Josey Wales").

One notable exception to the Eastwood rule was Michael Crichton's sci-fi/Western blend "Westworld." The 1973 film stars Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as a pair of buddies who take a vacation to an adult amusement park called Delos to live out their dreams...

Actor Martin Delaney has stepped into the shoes of a tech visionary in the new film “The Man Who Saved the Internet With a Sunflower.”

Delaney portrays Robert Ryan, the founder of Ascend Communications who played a crucial role in the early days of the internet. The film has already garnered critical acclaim, recently winning the Competition Features Audience Award at the Dances With Films festival.

The film chronicles Ryan’s journey from humble beginnings to becoming a key player in Silicon Valley during the 1980s and ’90s. It focuses on Ryan’s development of the “pizza box” modem, which revolutionized internet access by offering faster speeds at half the price of competitors. This innovation allowed struggling internet service providers to stay afloat and ultimately led to Ascend’s meteoric rise in the tech industry, culminating in its sale to Lucent Technologies for $24 billion in 1999.

“I was intrigued by Rob’s story,...

Within a single season, a limited series can tell a cohesive and riveting story that will leave viewers stunned. 2024 has been a stellar year for miniseries of different genres. For example, Netflix's Baby Reindeer became a global sensation, and FX's Shogun even secured a second season after starting as a limited series. They have joined other beloved miniseries in the past few years, like Dopesick and The Queen's Gambit, as some of the best of the 2020s thus far.

However, there have also been plenty of limited series over the years that have fallen under the radar due to competition, less word of mouth, and lower popularity. One strong example from 2024 is Hulu's Clipped, which chronicles one of the NBA's biggest scandals. The show is already tracking to become underappreciated among other recent miniseries. There are a good handful of limited series that deserve more recognition,...

The private literary collection of late publishing tycoon and editor Robert Gottlieb will be showcased by Metrograph’s Summer Book Fair.

IndieWire can exclusively announce that the late former editor-in-chief of The New Yorker, who also served as the president of publishing powerhouse Knopf, will be posthumously celebrated by the Lower East Side theater. Gottlieb was also at the center of 2022 documentary “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” directed by his daughter Lizzie Gottlieb.

The upcoming Summer Book Fair was organized with the support of the Gottlieb family by Metrograph Editions, the specialty boutique arm of Metrograph, and will feature more than 500 film books from Gottlieb’s personal collection. The books will be for sale and include the seal “From the Library of Robert Gottlieb.” The event will take place on Saturday, July 20.

Gottlieb died in 2023 at the age of 92. He collaborated with Joseph Heller on “Catch-22,...

Exclusive: CAA has signed Luke Davies, the decorated Australian screenwriter, novelist and poet best known for his work on the 2016 Dev Patel drama, Lion.

Marking the feature directorial debut of Garth Davis, who’s currently back in theaters with the Amazon sci-fi thriller Foe, Lion is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley (Patel), who, against incredible odds, sought to reunite with his lost family after being separated from them by thousands of miles, over a period of 25 years. Davies won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of Brierley’s 2013 book, A Long Way Home. Nicole Kidman also starred in the pic, which launched out of the Toronto Film Festival and went on to claim a total of six Oscar noms, including Best Picture, also grossing an impressive $140M+ worldwide.

Davies is also known for teaming with filmmaker Paul Greengrass to script his...

Robert Klane, the screenwriter for “Weekend at Bernie’s” and “Where’s Poppa?” and the director of “Thank God It’s Friday, has died. He was 81 years old.

Klane’s son Jon Klane confirmed the news to TheWrap. He said of his dad, “His quick, razor wit lit up every room he walked into. He was a fearless, magnetic, presence whose unique brand of black comedy delivered guilty pleasures for those capable of laughing at their own dark impulses.”

In addition to those films, Klane worked as a writer on a number of movies and TV shows, including “The Man With One Red Shoe,” six episodes of “M*A*S*H*” and “Tracey Takes On,” which won an Emmy.

“Weekend at Bernie’s” is Klane’s most well-known work, though in 2014 he filed a lawsuit alongside the film’s director claiming the pair had not been paid residuals owed from the movie since its 1989 release. Klane and...

The reaction was always the same. During my high school days, I must have seen “Wait Until Dark” five times during its theatrical release. Audrey Hepburn was appealing, of course, but the main attraction for me was Alan Arkin’s chilling portrayal of a psycho sadist who, in the course of reclaiming a misdirected heroin shipment, terrorizes a blind woman in her apartment. Late in the 1967 thriller, the distressed damsel temporarily gets the upper hand by stabbing her tormentor. But as she walks away, the psycho leaps back into her kitchen and grabs her ankle.

And every time he did this, every time I saw “Wait Until Dark,” people in the audience screamed. Really, really loudly. Like, louder than the folks around me in a theater seven years later during the first jump-scare in “Jaws.”

While reading the online obituaries and social media tributes as the sad news of Arkin’s death spread,...

The late iconic actor Alan Arkin appeared in more than 100 movies during his illustrious career. Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 26, 1934, and grew up in a show business family. Both his mother and father were teachers, but his father was also a singer and his mother was a writer. Arkin formed a love for acting as a child and eventually attended Los Angeles City College to study theater and drama. He went on to gain notoriety for his role in the original Broadway production Enter Laughing for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.

Arkin's first major on-screen appearance was in 1967 in the comedy movie The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. Arkin received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role as Lt. Rozanov. Throughout the course of his career, Arkin was nominated for three additional Academy Awards, one in a leading...

Alan Arkin, the longtime celebrated actor, who won an Oscar for his performance in “Little Miss Sunshine” and earned two Emmy nominations for “The Kominsky Method”, has died. He was 89.

Arkin’s death was confirmed to People by his sons, Adam, Matthew and Anthony, in a statement, saying, “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man. A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.”

A man who wore many hats, Arkin was an actor, director and screenwriter whose career spanned over six decades.

While primarily known for his screen work, he first broke out on Broadway in New York City. He received a Tony Award for his second performance in 1963’s Enter Laughing. A decade later, he was nominated for another Tony Award, this time for directing the 1973 play The Sunshine Boys.

During that time,...

Alan Arkin, the Oscar-winning actor who starred in films like Little Miss Sunshine, Argo, and Glengarry Glen Rose during a career that spanned over 60 years, has died at the age of 89.

Arkin’s sons Adam, Matthew, and Anthony confirmed their father’s death in a statement to People. “Our father was a uniquely talented force of nature, both as an artist and a man,” his sons wrote. “A loving husband, father, grand and great grandfather, he was adored and will be deeply missed.” No cause of death was provided.

Arkin...

Robert Gottlieb, the legendary editor at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker who helped shape the work of many of the world’s greatest writers over the past six decades, has died, according to Knopf and The New Yorker. He was 92.

A partial list of the literary talents whose work Gottlieb edited includes Nobel laureates such as Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing and V.S. Naipaul; bestselling novelists such as John le Carré, Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury; Hollywood types such as Elia Kazan, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Nora Ephron and Lauren Bacall; Pulitzer Prize-winners such as John Cheever, Katharine Graham and Robert Caro; and even a president, Bill Clinton.

Gottlieb was featured in the documentary Turn Every Page, directed by his daughter Lizzie, which premiered at last year’s Tribeca Festival and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. The film focuses on Gottlieb and Caro as...

Famed literary editor Robert Gottlieb, former Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief and editor of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved,” has died at the age of 92.

The writer died of natural causes at a New York hospital on Wednesday, and his death was announced by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The New Yorker, where Gottlieb also previously served as editor-in-chief, shared the news of his death via Twitter, posting an article that details his life and impact.

Gottlieb was born April 29, 1931, and was raised in the Manhattan borough of New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1952 before attending Cambridge University in the U.K for two years.

Also Read:

Cormac McCarthy, Legendary Author of ‘No Country for Old Men’ and ‘The Road,’ Dies at 89

Three years later, Gottlieb joined publishing company Simon and Schuster working as an editorial assistant for Jack Goodman, then-editor-in-chief. While there he edited Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22,...

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Beef.

The season finale of Netflix's Beef leaves its two rage-fueled, deceptive protagonists with little else but each other as they surprisingly bond in the desert over their philosophies on life and the meaning of their tattoos. Danny and Amy both find themselves stranded after driving off a large residential hill in Los Angeles following Issac's violent home invasion at Jordan's mansion. It is in this odd circumstance that they are finally able to let their guards down and level as two people who are more similar than they are different. Their chaotic feud that took place throughout the series develops into a spiritual understanding and unlikely friendship.

The dangerous pair of Amy and Danny are finally able to neutralize and empathize with one another by the ending of Beef season 1. They spend a night in the desert talking about their lives,...

Exclusive: Smokehouse TV and 101 Studios have made a multiyear overall deal for original scripted and unscripted content for television.

This formalizes a relationship that got underway with Smokehouse Pictures and 101 Studios already teaming on the upcoming docuseries about the decades-long abuse scandal in the athletic department at Ohio State University. Based on the Sports Illustrated article by Jon Wertheim, this docuseries will be distributed by HBO. Its focus is on the victims of Richard Strauss, a former sports physician at Ohio State who’s accused of sexually abusing more than 300 athletes over decades working at and with the university. Oscar and Emmy winner Eva Orner (Taxi to the Dark Side) directed the feature length docu.

Next up is The Department, which Clooney is directing and is EP. Showtime has given a straight-to-series order. The Department is based on the acclaimed French espionage political thriller The Bureau. Smokehouse Pictures produces...

Ever since the printing press was invented, there's been no shortage of instances of books being banned. The reasons for these bans run the gamut from the religious to the political to the moral. Because the standards of decency have changed so much over the centuries, books that were once considered obscene are now socially acceptable, and sometimes, it's the other way around.

While the general intent of banning a book is to prevent readers from engaging with it, it often has the opposite effect. Labeling a book "forbidden" can bring more attention to it. This "Streisand Effect" makes a lot of sense. When the powers that be condemn a piece of media, this only increases the audience's curiosity about why it's so controversial. Not only have bans led to books becoming more popular, but it has also led to them getting the big screen treatment. Hollywood has rarely shied away from capitalizing on controversy,...

The season of rambling acceptance speeches is at hand, prompting that nasty question: Why can’t award winners learn how to edit their gratitude? Or find an editor to help?

The answer is in the process itself, which Cate Blanchett, upon winning over the weekend at the Critics Choice Awards for Tár, called a “patriarchal pyramid.” She should know because the pyramid has granted her more than 120 awards for her 70 movies (including two Oscars).

Whether in speeches or the projects generating them, filmmakers and writers classically distrust their editors. There’s even a new documentary about a classically feisty editing conflict. Titled Turn Every Page, it deals with books, not film — and, predictably, it’s too long.

Related Story ‘Tár’ Star Cate Blanchett Wants A New Way To Celebrate “Arbitrary” Awards Season During Critics Choice Awards After Best Actress Win Related Story Riz Ahmed & Allison Williams To Host 2023 Oscar Nominations:...

Edward R. Murrow once warned of television, "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box." If he were alive today, well, he'd be talking about a rectangle for starters. He'd also, most likely, be utterly devastated at the state of journalism in America.

17 years ago, George Clooney brilliantly restaged a precarious moment in U.S. history with "Good Night, and Good Luck." This was the tale of Murrow and his CBS News producer Fred Friendly, who laid their professional lives on the line to take on the fascist, red-baiting bully that was Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. While McCarthy and his media attack dogs like Jack O'Brien brazenly accused CBS reporter Don Hollenbeck of being a pinko commie,...

How do you fit all the complexities of a person's life into the space of a feature film? The short answer is you don't, which is why I've always found the biopic the most unsatisfying of genres. "Patton" avoids many of the usual pitfalls by limiting its scope to the three-year period during World War II which are central to General George S. Patton's enigmatic legend as a vainglorious, troublesome figure who also happened to be a tactical genius on the battlefield. The result is a three-hour character study that really feels like we get inside his head; while there are several huge battle scenes, all the real action is in George C. Scott's magnificent performance, who embodies the General so naturally that it hardly seems like he's acting at all. If director Franklin J. Schaffner wanted to save some money, he could have scrapped the battles altogether...

For a Robert Caro fan like myself, waiting for the Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s fifth volume in his monumental Lbj biography (which launched in 1982) is a condition best described as managing intense anticipation for the continuation of our greatest living storyteller’s magnum opus, and an ever-sobering grasp of mortality: Caro is 86.

True, we can’t hurry excellence, especially one committed to pencils, a typewriter, and carbon paper. But if people like me are chomping, what must his longtime editor Robert Gottlieb be thinking? He just turned 91!

The book world’s most formidable duo for more than 50 years — since they first teamed on Caro’s reputation-making political biography “The Power Broker” — is the subject of “Turn Every Page,” one of the better documentaries about researching, writing, and reading, directed by Gottlieb’s daughter Lizzie.

Also Read:

Patricia Bosworth, Marlon Brando Biographer and Former Actress, Dies at 86

Dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers...

If you asked somebody to rank all the James Bond movies in order of quality (and it’s the sort of thing we might do), there would likely be many different opinions about which one took the top spot. But definitely up there near the top would be Casino Royale, the Daniel Craig-starring series reboot released in 2006 that was also based on the first Ian Fleming 007 novel.

If you went all the way to the other end of the list, and if you were including every Bond film ever made, not just the Eon Productions movies, you’d be likely to run into the name Casino Royale again. But this Casino Royale is not the gritty, hard-bitten, streamlined Bond of the 2006 picture. This movie, released in 1967, is, well, an artifact. A weirdness. It is loathed by purist fans, partly because the film itself was an utter catastrophe and partly...

Dynamic filmmaking duo, Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), discuss their favorite animated movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

Swiss Army Man (2016)

Bottle (2010)

Hi Stranger (2016)

Robin Robin (2021)

Chicken Run (2000)

The Eagleman Stag (2011)

Noah (2014)

The External World (2011)

Interesting Ball (2014)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003)

Ghostbusters (1984) – Axelle Carolyn’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Tfh’s 30th anniversary celebration

Beowulf (2007)

Star Wars (1977)

Wall-e (2008)

Up (2009)

Inside Out (2015)

How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (2009)

The Lego Movie (2014)

Speed Racer (2008) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) – Dennis Cozzalio’s 2018 year-in-review

Princess Mononoke (1997) – Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Spirited Away (2001) – Charlie Largent’s Blu-ray review

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

Cleopatra (1970)

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

Ponyo (2008)

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind...

By Lee Pfeiffer

In Cinema Retro's never-ending quest to analyze relatively inconsequential movies, the trail takes us to Dirty Dingus Magee, one of Frank Sinatra's last starring feature films. The movie shocked critics when it opened in 1970 due to the trivial of the production. Time has done nothing to enhance its reputation and one can only wonder what possessed Sinatra to star in this tepid Western comedy. In reality, Sinatra's passion for movie-making was also tepid. He always preferred to concentrate on his singing career and regarded acting as a time-consuming sideline. His penchant for rarely approving a second take became legendary. Nevertheless, he was undeniably one of the cinema's great icons. Prior to Dirty Dingus Magee, Sinatra had shown good judgment with the majority of the films he made during the mid-to-late Sixties. There were some misguided efforts but Von Ryan's Express, Tony Rome, Lady in Cement...

We told you. Remember the rules. You didn’t listen. Now we’re Back with an all new batch of guest recommendations featuring Blake Masters, Julien Nitzberg, Floyd Norman, Tuppence Middleton and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wild Angels (1966)

Spirits of the Dead (1966)

The Trip (1967)

Mooch Goes To Hollywood (1971)

Stalker (1979)

The Candidate (1972)

The Parallax View (1974)

Network (1976)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

Margin Call (2011)

Death Wish (1974)

Death Wish (2018)

Seconds (1966)

Soylent Green (1973)

Rage (1972)

Assault on Wall Street (2013)

Repo Man (1984)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

The Train (1965)

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

Strange Brew (1983)

To Have And Have Not (1944)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Easter Parade (1948)

The Band Wagon (1953)

Guys And Dolls (1955)

On The Town (1949)

Casablanca (1942)

The Dirt Gang (1972)

Back To The Future (1985)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The Big Sleep (1946)

Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949)

My Man Godfrey...

Bruce Jay Friedman, an author, playwright and Oscar-nominated screenplay writer for Tom Hanks’s 1984 film Splash, died today in New York City. He was 90 and no cause of death was given by his son, Kipp Friedman.

In addition to screenplays, Friedman was known for his novels Stern and About Harry Towns, and the plays Scuba Duba and Streambath.

Friedman’s work was known for its wry humor and modern angst on such subjects as the transition to suburban life and the sex and drug adventures of a screenplay writer who had mixed feelings about his freedom to explore.

He authored more than a dozen books, including a comic take on bachelorhood that became the Steve Martin comedy The Lonely Guy.

Friedman also spent some time in front of the camera, appearing in Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail and Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives.

A literary lion of New York,...

From the people that brought you Pandemic Parade chapters 1-8, comes yet another thrilling episode featuring Jesse V. Johnson, Casper Kelly, Fred Dekker, Don Coscarelli, Daniel Noah, Elijah Wood and Blaire Bercy.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wondrous Story of Birth a.k.a. The Birth of Triplets (1950)

Contagion (2011)

The Omega Man (1971)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

Innerspace (1987)

The Howling (1981)

The Invisible Man (2020)

The Sand Pebbles (1966)

Where Eagles Dare (1969)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Goldfinger (1964)

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Dr. No (1962)

From Russia With Love (1963)

Bellman and True (1987)

Brimstone and Treacle (1982)

Richard III (1995)

Titanic (1997)

Catch 22 (1970)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

The Graduate (1967)

1941 (1979)

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Jaws (1975)

The Fortune (1975)

Carnal Knowledge (1970)

Manhattan...

What do The Handmaid's Tale, Catch-22, High Fidelity, and Little Fires Everywhere have in common?

They're all critically acclaimed novels later adapted into Hulu original series.

Unfortunately, not all of these adaptations did their source material justice.

Hulu's Catch-22 was a miss because it failed to capture the spirit of Joseph Heller's novel. Hulu transformed a satire into a tragedy. In the process, it robbed the story of its uniqueness and its greatest epiphany.

The novel is famous for its absurdist humor. The TV series couldn't capture it onscreen -- not even when passages from the novel were said verbatim. The tone and the delivery were off. Whenever the series tried to be funny, it came off as bleak instead of bleakly funny.

Without nailing the comedic aspects, Hulu's Catch-22 became a slog to watch, and the conclusion, completely different from the novel's ending, was depressing.

After watching Catch-22...

Newcomer Simone Recasner and Jon Rudnitsky (Catch-22) are set as series regulars in The Big Leap, Fox’s ballet-themed hourlong comedy-drama pilot inspired by the UK reality series Big Ballet.

Written by The Passage writer/executive producer Liz Heldens, The Big Leap is descried as a funny and contemporary tale about second chances, chasing your dreams and taking back what’s yours. The show revolves around a group of diverse underdogs from all different walks of life who compete to be part of a competition reality series that is putting on a modern, hip remake of Swan Lake. What they lack in the traditional dancer body type, they make up for with their edge, wit and desire to reimagine an iconic story to fit their own mold.

More from DeadlineScott Foley To Star In 'The Big Leap' Fox Dramedy PilotCoronavirus Hits Chicago Production Of Fox's 'NeXt'...

George Clooney has wrapped filming on a Netflix adaptation of the novel “Good Morning, Midnight” for Netflix, as confirmed by the streamer in a recent tweet. The movie is now titled “The Midnight Sky.” Because, no, it’s not that “Good Morning, Midnight,” a novel penned by Jean Rhys in the 1930s about an alcoholic forced by her enabling bestie to spend her dying days drying out in a Paris hostel. This is a science-fiction story, lifted from Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2017 novel centered on Augustine (George Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.

David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, and Tiffany Boone co-star. Per Netflix, the film is set to be released later in 2020. The screenplay comes from “The Revenant” co-writer Mark L. Smith.

This is Clooney’s first return...

Tony Sokol Jan 9, 2020

Buck Henry, who created classic comedy for big and small screens, dies at 89.

Genius comedy writer and actor Buck Henry died of a heart attack at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Health Center at the age of 89, according to Variety. Henry was a frequent host on Saturday Night Live, wrote the screenplays for such comedy classics as The Graduate and What’s Up, Doc? and co-created Get Smart with Mel Brooks.

Buck Henry, who was born Henry Zuckerman on Dec. 9, 1930, was the son of silent film actress Ruth Taylor, who was also the star of the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. His stockbroker father was a retired Air Force brigadier general named Paul Steinberg Zuckerman. Given Henry’s penchant for comic corruption, this may have informed the educational subterfuge he mined to adapt, along with collaborator Calder Willingham, Charles Webb's novel The Graduate for Mike Nichols' 1967 classic generational comedy. “I...

Buck Henry, a writer who with Mel Brooks created TV’s Get Smart and a frequent host during Saturday Night Live‘s early years, died on Wednesday from a heart attack. He was 89.

Henry’s early writing credits included TV’s The Garry Moore Show and This Was the Week That Was, before he and Brooks created 1965’s Get Smart, a five-season, Emmy-winning spy spoof starring Don Adams in the title role.

More from TVLineEddie Murphy's SNL Hits an 11-Year Audience High With DVR Playback, Best Since Sarah Palin's 2008 Visit2019's Biggest TV Controversies: SNL's Mis-Hire, Rookie Exit, Constance Wu Rues Renewal,...

War is many things. Violence, carnage, insanity, hell. From the doctors and nurses in charge of caring for the wounded to the generals, colonels, and majors running the show from behind the scenes, and especially the men at the front lines, it takes a lot to survive a war. Joseph Heller’s classic novel Catch-22, along with Hulu’s stunning adaptation, does an exquisite job of highlighting the personality types that thrive in a hostile environment like war, and those that do not. With the help of the Myers-Briggs Personality Index, let’s dive into these rich characters and find out how their varied personalities deal with the perils of war.

Related: 5 Ways Hulu's Catch-22 Improved Upon The Original Movie (& 5 Ways It Didn't)...

Netflix has released its first look teaser trailer for David Michod’s “The King,” starring Timothee Chalamet. The Shakespearean adaption sees its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 2.

The adaptation of several of Shakespeare’s plays sees Chalamet star as the newly crowned King Henry V, who must navigate palace politics, the war his father (Ben Mendelsohn) left behind, and the emotional strings of his wayward past – including his relationship with his closest friend and mentor, the aging alcoholic knight John Falstaff (Joel Edgerton).

The ensemble cast also includes Robert Pattinson, Sean Harris, Lily-Rose Depp, and Thomasin McKenzie. Edgerton co-wrote the adaptation with Michod, with the pair also serving as producers alongside Dede Gardner, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, and Liz Watts.

Michod previously directed war satire “War Machine,” starring Pitt, for Netflix and is coming off writing duties on Hulu’s acclaimed adaptation of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22.

Tony Sokol Jul 22, 2019

Paul Krassner got tips from Lenny Bruce, tripped with Groucho, and turned political activism into a Marx Brothers movie.

Journalist, satirist, standup comedian, and author Paul Krassner, who was one of the architects of the '60s protest movement, died Sunday at his home in Desert Hot Springs, California, according to his daughter, Holly Krassner Dawson, who confirmed the news to the Associated Press. No further details of Krassner’s death have been revealed. The founder of the Youth International Party, best known as the Yippies, had recently transitioned to hospice care after an undisclosed illness. Krassner was 87.

Krassner was born in Brooklyn on April 9, 1932. A child violin prodigy, in 1939 he became the youngest person ever to play Carnegie Hall. He was six years old.

He went on to ride the bus with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and became intimately acquainted with some of the...

In the abundance of this Peak TV era, it is inevitable that the anticipation of the Emmy nominations today would be exceeded by disappointment.

While Game of Thrones, Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Killing Eve and Chernobyl have some extra bounce with their coffee this morning after The Masked Singer‘s Ken Jeong and The Good Place‘s D’Arcy Carden just revealed who is in the race this year, The Big Bang Theory and Julia Roberts are experiencing a crash from more than just the caffeine.

In that vein, here are some of the most significant snubs and surprises from the noms for the 71st Primetime Emmys. Is there anyone or any show we missed? Tell us!

Snubs

The Big Bang Theory: The final season of one of the biggest shows on the small screen was blown out of the sky today.

It's a good thing Abe never gives up.

One thing after another goes wrong in the prosecution's case against a sketchy Marine recruiter on The Code Season 1 Episode 9.

Still, as usual, Abe managed to pull a rabbit out of his hat to get a third crack at Sgt. Lucas, the white-power advocate with an eye for underaged girls.

You would think either one of those traits would get someone tossed from the Marines, but apparently not. 

Because Lucas was among the Corps' top recruiters and the Corps needs the many wanna-be Marines whom he entices to enlist.

In other words, no one on the recruitment side of things was pushing to get Lucas tossed out despite his, well, foibles.

Then there was the problem that Abe couldn't find a charge that would stick.

Initially, a girl who Lucas had been recruiting accused that Lucas had had sex with her while she was underage,...

Netflix is ramping up its star power. The streamer said Monday that two-time Oscar winner George Clooney is attached to direct and star in a feature based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel Good Morning, Midnight, which was adapted for screen by The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith.

Clooney and producing partner Grant Heslov are producing the pic under their Smokehouse Pictures banner with Anonymous Content and Syndicate Entertainment, who sourced the material. Production is slated to begin in October.

The post-apocalyptic plot follows the parallel stories of Augustine (Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to make contact with the crew of the Aether spacecraft as they try to return home to Earth.

Published via Random House in 2016, Good Morning, Midnight was named one of the best books of the year by Shelf Awareness and the Chicago Review of Books.

“Grant and I couldn’t be more...

Right from the start, George Clooney and producing partner Grant Heslov demanded period authenticity for the hellish World War II aerial combat missions in their miniseries remake of Joseph Heller’s black comedy, “Catch 22.” That put the onus on production designer David Gropman and cinematographer Martin Ruhe to tackle the exterior and interior aerial combat missions, and to put us up close and tight inside the B-25s with Christopher Abbott’s Yossarian and his fellow bombardiers.

“We all agreed that the aerial work had to be realistic and [intense],” said Ruhe. “That’s why we shot as much as possible with real planes in the air.” However, they could only afford two functioning B-25s because of the cost of transporting them from the U.S. to Sardinia, where they shot on an abandoned runway near the Olbia Airport. The cinematographer shot with Alexa Minis mounted to all of the...

“Catch-22” is Hulu’s epic new adaptation of the classic Joseph Heller novel about Captain John Yossarian, a young Us Army bombardier (Christopher Abbott) stationed in Italy during World War II, who is desperate to fulfil his seemingly interminable flight mission quota, so he can be discharged and finally return home.

The show opens on Yossarian wandering a busy military tarmac wearing nothing but a pair of boots. He looks defeated and unhinged as he eventually screams hysterically while his army buddies look on in the distance. We are then transported back to the beginning to explain how he went from cocky wide-eyed innocence to broken, jaded and traumatized, suffering setback after setback until he snaps. This is a devastating but often very funny satire about sanity, mortality and the futility of war, as young and eager bombardiers are sent up into the sky in cramped warplanes to drop bombs on the enemy,...

This story originally appeared in the Movies & Limited Series issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.

It’s a good thing that Christopher Abbott was cast to play John Yossarian, the existentialist, bombardier protagonist of Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel “Catch-22,” in Hulu’s adaptation of the book, because Abbott is quite the existentialist himself. He studied the author’s work carefully to play YoYo, a man caught in a war he can’t escape since claiming that he can’t fly because he’s crazy proves he’s sane.

“The book is a plethora of backstory and knowledge,” Abbott, the star of the George Clooney-executive produced and directed limited series, said. “Obviously, there were scenes that were in the book that weren’t in the show. But there are elements of the character and who Yossarian is as a person that gave me a lot that...

While Hulu drew attention to its most recent series by casting A-listers such as George Clooney in its “Catch-22” adaptation and Patricia Arquette in “The Act,” it was the younger actors in both of these series, Christopher Abbott and Calum Worthy, respectively, who took center stage and became breakout stars in the process.

During Hulu’s “Art of Casting” panel at Variety’s TV Summit Wednesday, casting directors Sharon Bialy (“The Act”) and Rachel Tenner (“Catch-22”) both admitted that casting the leading roles in their respective limited series was more streamlined than usual.

Tenner, who was responsible for finding the right man to portray the iconic fictional character of Yossarian, noted that Clooney and Grant Heslov are both extremely decisive and knew that Abbott was the right man for the role immediately.

“We wanted someone grounded, funny but also a leading man – all these great qualities,” she said. “And I was like ‘Oh,...

There’s an hour to go before the pilot episode of Catch-22 unspools to Emmy voters at the Television Academy in the San Fernando Valley, and George Clooney is feeling pretty confident. He and his Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov have completed work on their six-part miniseries based on Joseph Heller’s classic World War II novel, and it is days away from its launch on Hulu.

Both men directed two episodes each and play small but pivotal roles in a drama that has top-flight writers—Lion’s Luke Davies and War Machine’s David Michôd—plus a stellar cast of vets—including Hugh Laurie and Kyle Chandler—who surround a strong crop of young actors headed by Christopher Abbott. Abbott stars as Yossarian, the pilot who decides his survival is most important, amid rule changes that escalate the number of dangerous missions that he and his fellow soldiers must fly before being sent home.

The tone of Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” is as absurd as the bureaucratic rule after which the book is named. So when costume designer Jenny Eagan joined Hulu’s limited series adaption of the satirical novel, she knew she had to ground the war-time show in something real.

“I thought it was a real fun challenge,” Eagan told Gold Derby at our Meet the Btl Experts: Costume Design panel, moderated by this author (watch above). “There is so much in there — the dialogue and so much detail — that I immediately from the beginning thought that I needed to keep it very authentic. It was important to honor World War II, the look and the time period, so you didn’t get distracted. You can do little things, but this one I thought it was truly important to keep it authentic.”

While Eagan custom-made clothes for the main stars, including Christopher Abbott,...

Hulu is doing its small part to protect the environment by making their 2019 Emmy Fyc mailer entirely recyclable. The lightweight brown package, which includes a Usb drive as opposed to standard DVDs, is made with 100% recycled material including 75-30% post-consumer fiber. The phrase “Being green was always our thing” greets TV academy members on the booklet that highlights seven of the streaming service’s Emmy-eligible programs. Scroll down to find out what specific Hulu episodes are being watched by Emmy voters as we speak.

SEEHulu looks to ‘Catch-22’ for its 1st Emmy nomination as Best Limited Series

Two years ago Hulu made television history when it became the first streaming service to win a main series race. “The Handmaid’s Tale” claimed eight total trophies in 2017 including Best Drama Series, Best Drama Actress for Elisabeth Moss, Best Drama Supporting Actress for Ann Dowd, Best Drama Directing and Best Drama Writing.

Alan Arkin turned 85 earlier this year, yet he has always seemed timeless. With a career spanning more than 60 years, it’s difficult to fathom when there was ever a time when Arkin wasn’t part of the culture. He was an early member of the Second City theater troupe before making his Oscar-nominated film debut in the timely “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” in 1966. He gave iconic performances in seminal movies; he terrified Audrey Hepburn (and audiences) in “Wait Until Dark”; starred in Mike Nichols’ take on Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”; starred and produced the comedy classic “The In-Laws”; and lent his voice to the 1982 cult classic “The Last Unicorn.” And that was all before his Oscar-winning turn in “Little Miss Sunshine,” which kicked off a renaissance of sorts for the actor, who earned another nomination for best picture winner “Argo” and now stars on the heralded...

How do you strike the correct musical tone when a piece of storytelling rides the line between comedy and drama? For many composers working in the limited series and television movie formats this year, the cues were taken directly from

the scripts, but elements including choral music, jazz and even a detuned piano offered additional creative solutions.

In Amazon’s “Good Omens,” the mood shifts from scene to scene, as an angel (Michael Sheen) and a demon (David

Tennant) work together to try and stop the coming apocalypse, to the consternation of their colleagues in heaven and hell. English composer David Arnold (“Sherlock”) says he doesn’t believe one should “ever try and be funny with music,” though.

“If it’s funny, it’s funny, and your job [as composer] is to get out of the way and support the humor. The opening title music is a kind of wicked, slightly devilish,...

Over the past few years television has become an arena that is overflowing with period dramas and historical explorations. However, the difference in recent years is that many viewers are no longer as content to see, and showrunners are no longer as satisfied make, straight period dramas. To set themselves apart, today’s shows that play in the past are expected to offer some commentary on modern society, or to frame the past in a way that it hasn’t been seen on screen before.

Starz’s “The Spanish Princess” is set in Tudor times, characterized by extravagant costumes, dramatic speeches and sweeping proclamations. Yet showrunners Emma Frost and Matthew Graham set out with a different approach to the period by placing the fiery Catherine of Aragon and her diverse court in the center of the action.

“It’s an incredible opportunity to tell stories that women are at the center of,...