In the fake show promo, a vocieover intones: “You’ve seen dead teens in New York, Chicago, and Boston, but what about another city with very specific whites? Pennsylvania whites?” “Murdur Durdur” also parodies Winslet as a British person playing a salt-of-the-Earth Pennsylvanian (she told Indiewire that her character, Mare Sheehan, is “kind of disgusting“). The commercials bills “Murdur Durdur” as “an extremely Pennsylvania crime show.” Musk added to a line of unusual and potentially risky “SNL” hosts, often to impressive ratings, including Donald Trump, Al Gore, Ralph Nader, and Al Sharpton....

“When I was working on ‘Lost in Translation,’ I was workshopping the script at an acting class, and she played the role that Scarlett Johansson ended up playing,” Coppola said, who also worked with Jones on her 2015 Netflix film “A Very Murray Christmas.” “I remember first working with her then and always having a connection to her and really liking her!” The experience was enlightening for Jones, then in her mid-20s....

For the iconic New York City, production designer Steve Pilcher and the art department created a tactile world that’s “solid, physical and reflective with lots of color…with a history of wear and tear. Buildings and railings and pavement are weathered or bleached,” he said. “Nothing’s really perfect in this world. It’s very organic and interesting. There is texture and tons of variety, color variation, weather conditions, wet surfaces, and dry surfaces — all that beauty that we take for granted becomes evident, particularly once you’ve been in The Great Before where everything is based on almost perfect symmetry....

Directed by Jon Watts, who helmed both 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” the film is set to be released on December 17 as part of the Phase Four rollout of the evolving Marvel Cinematic Universe. Joining Holland as Peter Parker are Zendaya as MJ, his classmate and girlfriend; Marisa Tomei as his Aunt May; Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange; Jamie Foxx as Electro; and Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, reprising his role from Sony’s “Spider-Man 2” from 2004....

With its third season, “Star Trek: Discovery” has achieved both — to eye-popping effect in some cases, to invisible seamlessness in others. In fact, it’s hard to think of any other season of “Star Trek” in the franchise’s 54-year history that offers up more changes, in front of the camera and behind the scenes. In one particular respect, “Discovery” is leaving a warp trail that the rest of the TV industry can follow: Season 3 had all aspects of its post-production completed with a crew of artists working entirely from their homes....

Soderbergh revealed during a recent interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he is developing a “philosophical” sequel to “Contagion” alongside Scott Burns, who served as screenwriter on the 2011 film. The project appears to be in its early stages and will unlikely be a direct sequel to “Contagion,” but Soderbergh noted that it may touch on similar themes and ideas. “I’ve got a project in development that Scott Burns is working with me on, that’s a kind of philosophical sequel to ‘Contagion,’ but in a different context,” Soderbergh said....

To a certain extent, of course, everything that happened before the end of that summer would soon be recast in a soft new light. Spielberg had imagined the World Trade Center would serve as a lasting memorial for our entire species more than 2,000 years in the future, poking through the ice floor of a frozen New York City like two ancient footstones in a half-forgotten graveyard; when the Twin Towers collapsed less than three months later, the adults on TV commemorated the carnage as a generational “loss of innocence,” and I remembered Monica Swinton (Frances O’Connor) apologizing to the young android that she abandoned in the woods: “I’m sorry for not telling you about the world....

Last June, as the coronavirus pandemic continued to rage across the world, the festival rolled out an innovative hybrid plan to ensure both the existence of a pared-down in-person element and a robust online hub for the virtual attendance of those unable to travel to Park City, Utah. While other festivals opted to go entirely virtual or postpone their physical editions altogether, heavy hitters like TIFF and Sundance both mounted events that offered both physical and virtual components....

The best episodes might be outstanding hours of shows that fluctuate in quality, or a pivotal character moment or story beat that contextualizes everything else. Sometimes the best episode is part of an almost embarrassing bounty — just one of many consistently brilliant installments in a TV show that blew away both audiences and critics. IndieWire’s look at the best TV episodes of 2022 is all those things, populated by our usual suspects of top 2022 TV as well as hours we couldn’t forget and shows we gladly binged in a weekend....

Hawke reunites with Derrickson after their sick 2012 horror film “Sinister,” one of the most truly creepy movies of the last decade. Here’s the synopsis of “The Black Phone”: “After five children go missing in a suburban Colorado town in the 1970s, Finney Shaw is soon to become the sixth victim when he is kidnapped by a serial killer and trapped inside of a soundproof basement. Finding a disconnected phone, Shaw discovers its ability to transmit the voices of the killer’s previous victims, who try to help him escape....

Platform films initially focus on creating word of mouth, particularly in awards-sensitive New York and Los Angeles. Compared to many other platform releases, “Fabelmans” fell short. However, in 2018 “Green Book” opened in 25 theaters to $320,000, or about $13,000 per theater. The PTA at its four New York/Los Angeles locations skewed higher, with $25,000. At the end of a very long run, it grossed $85 million domestic. Like “Green Book,” Spielberg’s film won the often Oscar-predictive audience prize at the Toronto International Film Festival....

“What I discovered about David is he’s a perfectionist and I’m a perfectionist, so if you want to do 70 takes that’s all the more time I have to practice and try to do better,” Coon said. “He would show me the frame and tell me why he was asking me to do the things he was asking for. You can’t take it personally because he’s looking at the whole picture....

On the contrary, “The Harder They Fall” seems determined to correct the record. Manifest Destiny may have been a uniquely Anglo-Saxon concept, but white people weren’t alone in the westward expansion that followed the Civil War — no matter what the vast majority of movies about that time period would have you believe. In fact, many historians estimate that more than a quarter of the era’s cowboys were Black, and so the idea of making a straightforward Western about two rival factions of African-American outlaws shouldn’t require any stretch of the imagination....

“Gremlins” and “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” director Joe Dante dissed “The Mandalorian” for “shamelessly” modeling Baby Yoda off Gizmo, the lovable young Mogwai from his creature feature, as he sees it. The 1984 classic was produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Chris Columbus, and starred Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates, with Howie Mandel voicing Gizmo. The franchise is getting an upcoming animated installment with the HBO Max series, “Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai,” with Ming-Na Wen, BD Wong, and James Hong voicing characters....

The Chris Pratt-led Prime Video series is based on a book by former Navy SEAL Jack Carr, who serves as an executive producer on the show. While the series has a 94 percent audience score and a 39 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, Carr told Fox News that liberal-leaning media critics slammed the series because “there’s not this woke stuff that’s shoved into it” (via Mediaite). “There’s no ‘woke’ or ‘anti-woke,’ but just because there’s not this ‘woke’ stuff that’s shoved into it, then it’s perceived — by critics, at least — as not promoting their agenda, so they’re going to hate it,” Carr said....

The six-episode HBO series, premiering in May 2022, stars James as Henry DeTamble, a man plagued with the ability to go back in time. While it is a metaphysical scientific breakthrough, the skill doesn’t bode well for Henry’s marriage to Clare Abshire (Rose Leslie), who is left for a quite literally absentee husband at times. “He’s just a pile of clothes,” Clare explains during a confessional after Henry has disappeared back in time, out of his own control and leaving the kitchen sink running....

Radiating an otherworldly confidence, Aristiana (Sophie Giannamore) is the most important character in Paul’s journey to self-acceptance. She is the rare example of a young trans character standing fully in her power, whose arc is as far from the transition narrative as Paul is from home. While “Wolfboy” will surely resonate with anyone who has ever felt different or out of place, Aristiana’s prominence seals the film’s trans allegory — and it’s the heart of what makes it such an inspiring and tender coming-of-age fairytale....

Since that time, Perez has blossomed into a regular face in the stand-up world, and has been writing for television — her latest job is on the Netflix series “The Wedding Coach” — as well as making regular television appearances like in Ryan O’Connell’s Emmy-winning series “Special.” When it comes to a discussion of representation, Perez approaches it differently because she became a wheelchair user when she was 20. But she was already cognizant of how television viewed her, as she is Afro-Latina....

IndieWire spoke last month with Emmy contender Tapia de Veer, whose score keeps the audience unsettled and at a distance from the mostly soulless characters. The addictive theme song actually started as a piece written for Kanye West. “The sounds really came from just jamming [on] all these percussions. I went for a traditional sound, so playing big native flutes and little South American guitars and all this African percussion,” he told IndieWire....

The “Thor: Love and Thunder” co-stars may battle each other onscreen, with Bale as Gorr the God Butcher and Hemsworth reprising his role of the titular Nordic god superhero Thor, but actor Bale gave up on looking menacingly buff before even joining the production. “There’s no point in working out at all because you can’t compete with Chris,” Bale told The Wrap. The Oscar winner added that writer/director Taika Waititi gave him comic books featuring Gorr the God Butcher to read in preparation for playing the villain....