Ex-Simpsons Composer Alf Clausen Files Wrongful Termination Suit

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Alf Clausen, the longtime composer for The Simpsons who was fired from the show in 2017, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Fox and the show, claiming he was dismissed because of his age, Variety reports.

Clausen joined The Simpsons during its second season and worked on the show for 27 years. When he was let go in 2017, he said he received a call from Simpsons producer Richard Sakai, who said the show was seeking a different kind of music.

In his new lawsuit, filed Monday, Clausen countered, saying, This reason was pretextual and false. Instead, Plaintiffs unlawful termination was due to perceived disability and age. The new suit names Fox, James L. Brooks Gracie Films and The Simpsons new corporate owner, Disney, as defendants.

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A representative forThe Simpsonsdeclined to comment. A representative forFox did not immediately return Rolling Stones request for comment.

After Clausen was fired, The Simpsons replaced him with the music production company Bleeding Fingers Music, which was founded by Hans Zimmer, Russell Emanuel and Steve Kofsky. The suit alleges that Clausens replacement was substantially younger in age [and] was not only paid less, but was not disabled. The suit does not identify Clausens disability.

A lawyer for Clausen did not immediately return Rolling Stones request for comment.

At the time of Clausens firing, there was some speculation that the move was part of ongoing cost-cutting measures at The Simpsons, even though the show continues to rake in massive profits. The composers overhead was particularly high because he scored every episode with a 35-piece orchestra. While that was the set-up Simpsons creator Matt Groening wanted from the start, the cost of musicians, studios, orchestrations and other expenses could run into the millions per year.

During his tenure, Clausen handled background music and cues, contributed to an array of classic Simpsons songs and earned 23 Emmy nominations, winning two. At the start of Season Three, he also re-arranged Danny Elfmans famous Simpsons theme song.

GLOW Season 3: A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action, Please

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This post contains full spoilers for GLOW Season Three, which Netflix released on Friday.

In the closing moments of GLOWs third season, Britney Youngs Carmen announces plans to leave the show-within-the-show because, she says, I want to wrestle, and I cant do that here anymore.

Carmens in a unique position among the Netflix dramedys main characters. Almost everyone else fell into wrestling by accident, or for lack of a better option, where Carmen grew up in the wrestling world and loves it for its own sake. Even money man Bash (Chris Lowell), while a wrestling fan, has diversified his interests by this point in the series, and looks at GLOW as one small part of his larger showbiz empire. So it makes sense that Carmen, of all the regulars, would be most apt to make a meta comment about how little wrestling there is in this season of a show about wrestling.

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Over the course of a 10-episode season, only three episodes feature any significant action inside the squared circle: the premiere (Up, Up, Up), which establishes how the former cable-access show translates into a Las Vegas casino revue; the fifth episode (Freaky Tuesday), where all the women swap characters for the night; and the finale (A Very GLOW Christmas), in which Carmen convinces Ruth (Alison Brie) to perform a version of A Christmas Carol where Ruths wrestling alter ego Zoya the Destroya is Scrooge.

In several ways, it makes a lot of sense that Season Three largely back-burners the wrestling. Doing GLOW as a stage show for tourists means that it will be the same thing every night, and theres no point dramatizing that except on occasions like Freaky Tuesday, where things go differently. (And it turns out that Betty Gilpin can do a terrible Russian accent almost as amusing as Bries.) And by the end of Season Two, GLOW had arguably pushed the wrestling angle as hard as it could. Not only had all of the actresses become technically skilled in the ring, but that season devoted an entire, marvelously silly episode to showing us an installment of the Bash-produced show from beginning to end.

Perhaps most importantly, the wrestling sequences take up a lot of real estate on a show with a big ensemble an ensemble that it was clearly determined to service more thoroughly this year than in the past. By acknowledging early on that the Vegas show would be the same from night to night, Season Three gave itself more room (*) to dig deeper into nearly every character. (The two hairdressers were still mostly comic relief, but even they played a more dramatic role as Sunita Manis Arthie anxiously took a step out of the closet.)

(*) As a streaming show without commercials or time slots, GLOW can technically be any length it wants, and nearly every episode this year was 30-plus minutes, with several clocking in near or even over 40. But thats also pushing the outer limits of what tends to work in a TV comedy episode even for a series meant to be binged so something had to go. In this case, it was the wrestling.

Like Ruth and Debbie, GLOW itself has always looked on the wrestling as a means to an end. For the show, it was the chance to explore the ambitions and bonds among a group of misfits at a very tacky moment in our pop cultural history. Having long since established how the wrestling works, Season Three looked more at what made everybody tick.

Bashs green-card marriage to Rhonda (Kate Nash), for instance, allowed the creative team to more directly address Bashs own stay deep inside the closet, which had only been touched on briefly in previous seasons. This is tricky dramatic territory, but Lowell, Nash, and the writers navigated it with grace throughout culminating in an unexpected threesome between the sexually incompatible spouses and the male prostitute Rhonda had hired in the mistaken belief that she could make Bash jealous. Most of that sequence was dialogue-free, with the actors expressions and movements explaining everything about this impromptu renegotiation of the marriage.

There was also good material for Sheila the She-Wolf (Gayle Rankin) and Tamm (Kia Stevens) as they opted to make like Ruth and get serious about acting; for Debbie as she asserted herself as a producer and fell into a brief romance with older businessman Tex (Halt and Catch Fires always-charming Toby Huss); for the awkward romance between Arthie and Yolanda (Shakira Barrera), who had no interest in hiding her own identity; for GLOW director Sam (Marc Maron) to make peace with the fact that daughter Justine (Britt Baron) was a better writer than him; and for Cherry (Sydelle Noel) to debate whether to sacrifice her career to have a baby with husband Keith (Bashir Salahuddin). Nothing revolutionary, but all the stories were effectively told. The season also did a nice job with its two major new additions: Geena Davis as the former showgirl who owns the casino, and Kevin Cahoon as Bobby, a drag queen who becomes close with Sheila.

The monotonous, backgrounded nature of the wrestling fit into the seasons themes. Vegas offered both GLOW and its performers a chance to reinvent themselves. Nearly all took it, and discovered new facets of their work and/or personal lives. The only exceptions: Carmen, who just wanted to wrestle; and Ruth, who found herself plateauing while all her friends were blossoming. (Even Sam couldnt cast her in the studio movie he was making, because screenwriter Justine objected, and Sam chose his daughter over his would-be girlfriend.)

So in terms of plot, character, and theme, it made sense that we didnt spend much time watching Zoya, Liberty Belle, Machu Picchu, and the rest of the womens wrestling characters. But I have to admit that by the time Carmen voiced her objections to Ruth and Debbie, Id started to agree with her.

While the Vegas setting hemmed in the creative team regarding how much the show-within-the-show could change each time we saw it, its also not coincidental that Freaky Tuesday and A Very GLOW Christmas were among the seasons most effective episodes for both laughs and character development. GLOW just feels livelier, and truer to itself, when were spending at least a few minutes each episode on the work thats brought these misfits together. And in seasons past, the show deftly used the wrestling not only to provide narrative structure, but to help advance character arcs. There was some of that in Season Three Jackie Tohns Melrose does a racist Asian accent while swapping roles with Ellen Wongs Jenny in Freaky Tuesday, kicking off a very potent storyline for two of the shows back-benchers but not as much as there could have been. Its a big deal late in the season, for instance, when Sheila encounters a real wolf during a desert camping trip and, realizing that shes been faking it all these years, ashamedly burns her wig and other bits of lupine cosplay. But the only time afterward that we see her in the ring, its for the Christmas Carol spoof, which means we have no idea what kind of character she winds up playing the rest of the time or whether she feels enough of an actress now to separate the She-Wolf from Sheila and use the former for work purposes.

GLOW doesnt always need wrestling to move things along and hit important emotional beats. The seasons penultimate episode (The Libertines) takes place at an AIDS benefit cabaret that Bobby invites the women to, and those performances effectively take on the role the wrestling scenes so often play in underlining story and character and theme. (Its at the cabaret, for instance, that Sheila gets major validation for her acting, while Arthie is inspired to embrace her truth after homophobes vandalize the event.) But some kind of performance is helpful, and Season Three could have used some similar substitutions throughout.

The season ends with Debbie having helped Bash buy a local TV network out from under Tex, with the plan to revive GLOW as a television property (with new characters, because their old station owns the rights to Zoya, et. al), and with Ruth replacing Sam as director. But Carmen has already split for other opportunities, and Ruth doesnt want to give up her acting dream, even if, as Debbie bluntly puts it, it would have happened for her by now if it was going to.

Its a promising set-up for a potential fourth season, but fourth seasons on Netflix are becoming an increasingly rare proposition. The streaming giant has apparently embraced the idea that it can cancel shows, and that its subscribers would rather start something new after a few seasons. (Never mind that long-running shows like The Office and Friends are apparently among the most popular titles in the entire Netflix library.) It wouldnt surprise me if theres a fourth season of GLOW, but nor would it shock me to see it join the recent ranks of Tuca & Bertie and The OA, among many others, to get a shorter-than-planned run.

This was still a fine season of TV, and the best showcase yet for many members of the cast. And if GLOW manages to break the recent cancellation trend and come back for a season where Debbie and Bash are mounting a new wrestling TV show, then we can look on Season Three as an admirable and mostly successful experiment. But if the last we see of these characters is Debbie and Ruths awkward airport goodbye, then among the disappointments will be the fact that GLOWs unplanned farewell season mostly sidestepped the arena where so many of its memorable moments once took place.

Watch Elites Stalk Strangers for Sport in Wild New Trailer for The Hunt

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Hilary Swank orchestrates an annual competition where elites try to track and kill everyday citizens in the new trailer forThe Hunt. The movie hits theaters September 27th, and marks the latest offering from Blumhouse, the production company behind horror films like Get Out andThe Purge.

The Hunt centers around twelve strangers many of them working-class and/or from the South who have been chosen by a shadowy group of elites for a sadistic purpose: Theyre brought to a remote manor to be hunted for sport. One of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin from the Netflix series GLOW) wises up to the elites plan and turns the tables on them, hatching a plot to go after the killers with the help of the other kidnapped strangers. Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank stars as the leader of the elites and the films primary antagonist.

The film shares several credits with the post-apocalyptic television showThe Leftovers, with Craig Zobel credited as director andThe Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof (who also createdLost) penning the script with Nick Cuse. The film also stars Emma Roberts, Ike Barinholtz, Glenn Howerton and country musician Sturgill Simpson.

Shia LaBeouf Examines Turbulent Child Star Days in Honey Boy Trailer

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Shia LaBeouf wrestles with past demons, in the script and on the screen, in the new trailer for Honey Boy, the upcoming film based on his own experiences as a young actor.

The clip follows the fictionalized version of LaBeouf, Otis Lort, as he deals with family turmoil and the pressures of fame as both a child (Noah Jupe) and young adult (Lucas Hedges). LaBeouf himself appears as father James Lort, a former rodeo clown and felon who brings his son both inspiration and angst. Youre a fucking star, and I know it, the elder Lort tells Jupes character. Thats why Im here. Im your cheerleader, honey boy.

The preview traces the loose arc of the actors career from his ascent to stardom to eventual stint in rehab. It opens with Hedges on the set of a Hollywood action movie, filming a scene capped with a massive explosion; then in a montage, he swigs some alcohol, gets in a car crash and winds up yelling at the police from the back of a cop car: What am I being arrested for? You think youre hot shit? Cause you dont know how good I am at what I do!

Honey Boy, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and hits theaters November 8th, was directed by Alma Harel (Bombay Beach) from LaBeoufs screenplay. The cast also features singer FKA Twigs in her feature debut.

Eddie Murphy, Taylor Swift, Phoebe Waller-Bridge Announced in Saturday Night Live Season 45 Lineup

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UPDATE: Leslie Jones will not return to Saturday Night Live after five seasons on the show. Jones joined the cast in 2014 and quickly became a fan favorite, especially for her appearances on Weekend Update. Its unclear exactly why Jones decided to leave the cast ahead of its 45th season, though a source told The New York Post, Leslie has chosen to depart as she has several upcoming projects in the works and she thought its as the right time to go. Jones is reportedly prepping a new stand-up special, which is expected to hit Netflix next year.

**

Saturday Night Livehas announced its Season 45 lineup, kicking off on September 28th with Woody Harrelson in his fourth appearance as host and Billie Eilish in her first musical guest slot.

The host lineup also includes Fleabag andKilling Eve creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, slotted in for October 5th, as well asStranger Things actor David Harbour (October 12th) and Kristen Stewart in her second time as host (November 2nd).

But perhaps the most notable announcement for SNL fans is Eddie Murphy, who will be hosting the show on December 21st for the first time since 1984. The former SNL cast member has repeatedly distanced himself from the sketch series where he made his name, appearing very briefly duringSNLs 40th anniversary special but otherwise not participating. (It was later revealed by Norm Macdonald, in 100-tweet-long Twitter monologue, that Murphy was originally slated to give a Bill Cosby impression but turned it down.)

Other musical guests this season include Taylor Swift, joining Waller-Bridge on October 5th, and Camila Cabello on October 12th. The musical guests for the November 2nd and December 21st shows have yet to be announced.

On Becoming a God in Central Florida: Kirsten Dunst Is Mad as Hell in New Comedy

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You have a fearsome energy, Krystal Stubbs is told midway through On Becoming a God in Central Florida, Showtimes new comedy about American dreams and delusions. Its meant as shameless flattery, but its also an accurate description of both Krystal and the superb performance that Kirsten Dunst provides in the role by far the greatest delight in an otherwise uneven and sluggishly-paced series.

When we meet Krystal, she is a harried former beauty queen juggling her marriage to insurance salesman Travis (a mulleted Alexander Skarsgard), care of their baby daughter Destinee, and a job at the off-brand local water park. Its not an easy life, nor a glamorous one (shes introduced wearing orthodontic braces and tacky clothes). But shes far more content with it than Travis, who has fallen under the spell of an Amway-like pyramid scheme called FAM, and is devoting most of his waking hours, and even the family savings, to a quest to obtain the luxurious life he believes hes owed. And when Travis gets in too deep, its up to Krystal to save herself and the family, at any cost.

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Earlier in her career, Dunst would surely have played one of the goggle-eyed FAM zombies, like Travis creepy young mentor Cody (Thodore Pellerin), who always seems to be lurking about with a cookie cake or some vapid motivational catchphrases. But On Becoming a God, created by Matt Lutsky and Robert Funke, turns Dunsts innate sunniness on its head. Yes, Krystal knows how to flash a pageant smile when its called for, but shes also far from the sucker that Travis, Cody, and everyone else takes her for.

An exhausted Travis argues that its a great thing for the marriage that his FAM work makes him too tired for sex, lamely insisting, You should be begging me not to get hard! Krystal coldly dismembers him with three words: I. Dont. Beg. And whenever Cody turns up, naively convinced that this will be the day that the obvious genius of FAM and its founder Obie Garbeau (Ted Levine) will become clear to Krystal, she fires a withering gaze at him that would be licensed as a deadly weapon in several states. She does not have time for any of his bullshit, but circumstances force her to grapple with it, anyway.

Its one of the best performances Dunsts ever given, verbally, physically, and emotionally. Krystals personality is all sharp edges, in contrast to the post-pregnancy voluptuousness that she uses as a weapon of last resort. And though she makes plenty of mistakes in trying to extricate herself from FAMs clutches get ready for another prestige cable show where each solution creates three new problems, and an inconvenient corpse or two may have to be creatively disposed of theres a fierce intelligence thats palpable to the audience, even when Krystals playing dumb for the many men (and a few women) who have unfair control of her future.

At first, On Becoming a God is strange and funny enough to merit a leading turn as good as Dunsts. The world of FAM is so bizarre when viewed from any rational perspective, and supporting players like Pellerin and Levine (sporting a mustache so impressively thick and unruly, Sam Elliott might feel insecure looking at it) add the necessary color and energy required to make it plausible that someone like Travis, or like Krystals friend Ernie (a terrific Mel Rodriguez), could fall so easily under its spell. There are acts of shocking violence against both man and beast, and surreal tableaux that could occur only in an adventure in the titular state of the union. And the show makes some strong satirical points early on about the lies we are conditioned to tell ourselves in order to pursue the fortunes to which we are allegedly entitled.

But the creative team soon runs out of new things to say about FAM, and about most of these characters. Theres some entertaining interplay between Krystal and Cody, and the way she learns to use all of her powers against him. But what you see in the first few episodes is mostly what you get throughout the season. And suddenly it is alot of time being spent in the company of these bumbling zealots and their ridiculous jargon. There are enough ideas and jokes to fill the two-hour screenplay that it feels like On Becoming must have begun life as. But the season runs seven and a half hours in total (each episode hovers close to 45 minutes), and eventually becomes as exhausting to sit through as Krystal finds Cody. Her contempt for the whole enterprise, and the verve of Dunsts performance, cut through some of this unpleasant cults inanity, just not enough. Theres a scene of black-comic gore in the premiere thats hilarious for its surprise; by the time the finale strikes a similar note, the show feels too labored for anything to be funny.

Its a great title, though, and one hell of a star turn from Dunst an inversion of the kinds of enthusiastic women shes played in everything from Bring It On to Fargo, but also a natural progression. You put up with enough nonsense in this life, and eventually you may become just as ruthless as Krystal Stubbs surprises everyone by being.

On Becoming a God in Central Florida debuts August 25th. Ive seen all 10 episodes.

The I-Land Trailer Spins Psychological Thriller as Fyre Festival Spoof

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The disastrous Fyre Festival inspires a fictional new spin in the trailer for The I-Land, a new series coming to Netflix on September 12th.

Created by Neil LaBute (Billions,In the Company of Men, 2006s The Wicker Man) and starring Kate Bosworth, Alex Pettyfer and Natalie Martinez, the show follows 10 people who mysteriously wake up on an uncharted island with no memory of how they got there, and their subsequent struggle to escape. The trailer opens with a glossy promotional clip inspired by the infamous Fyre Festival announcement video, before dissolving into a series of glitches and a montage of psychological turmoil.

Bosworth describedThe I-Land to ET Canada as sort of adventure sci-fi, but very grounded in character, which sounds a lot likeLost combined with that island sequence fromThe Incredibles. The trailer shows two shadowy figures following the 10 marooned islanders on surveillance channels, which suggests that their entrapment on the island was by design.

Netflix premiered its Fyre Festival documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, in January, around the same time that competing streaming service Hulu debuted its own documentary,Fyre Fraud. The two films earned a combined five nominations at the 2019 Emmys.

The Mandalorian: See First Trailer for Disney+ Star Wars Series

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The long-awaited first trailer for The Mandalorian, the Star Wars franchises upcoming Disney+ series, was unveiled during Disneys D23 conference Friday. The series arrives on the streaming service on November 12th.

After the stories of Jango and Boba Fett, another warrior emerges in theStar Warsuniverse.The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order, the series synopsis states. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.

The Mandalorian stars Game of Thrones vet Pedro Pascal as the titular character, as well as Nick Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito, Werner Herzog, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers and the voice of director Taika Waititi.

Bounty hunting is a complicated profession, Herzogs character says, the lone dialogue spoken in the minute-long trailer. Dont you agree?

A behind-the-scenes preview of The Mandalorian previously screened during the Star Wars Celebration, which also featured the premiere of the first The Rise of Skywalker teaser.

#TheMandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars series, only on #DisneyPlus. Start streaming November 12. @TheMandalorian pic.twitter.com/JZsg6cikXA

Star Wars (@starwars) August 23, 2019

Disney+ also announced that the new season of the animated Star Wars series The Clone Wars would premiere in February 2020 on the streaming service.

Just announced at #D23Expo, the next season of The Clone Wars will premiere in February on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/Wuh08gVZaG

Star Wars (@starwars) August 24, 2019

Tupac, Afeni Shakur Docuseries Headed to FX

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FX announced a new slate of docuseries including a five-part project on Tupac and Afeni Shakur, as well as a six-episode investigation into a dying breed of old school hip-hop power brokers. The network announced five new docuseries in total, plus one feature documentary, though they have yet to share premiere dates for any of the programs.

Per a press release, Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur will tell the story of the most inspiring and dangerous mother-son duo in American history, whose unified message of freedom, equality, persecution and justice are more relevant today than ever. Afeni, who worked as an activist and served as a member of the Black Panthers, was a constant source of inspiration for Tupac, most famously on his 1995 single, Dear Mama.

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Filmmaker Allen Hughes will direct Outlaw. He previously helmed the 2017 HBO docuseries on Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, The Defiant Ones.

Along with Outlaw, FX is also prepping Hip Hop Untold, a six-part series about a dying breed of power brokers who operate from the shadows of hip hop. While the statement from FX doesnt offer any specifics about who will be featured in series, the show will reportedly offer a deep dive into the paradox of Americas criminalization of the genre and fascination with the street culture that exists within it.

The other docuseries coming to FX include Pride, a six-part history of the fight for LGBTQ civil rights in America that will feature a different LGBTQ director helming each episode. There will also be a six-part adaptation of Errol Morris book A Wilderness of Error, about a Green Beret physician accused of killing his wife, and The Most Dangerous Animal of All, which is based on a book by Gary L. Stewart, who set out to find his biological father and discovered that man was likely the Zodiac Killer. Lastly, FX will also produce a feature-length documentary, Women in Comedy, which was directed by Andrea Nevins and examines the changing landscape for women in stand up.

The Simpsons: Watch Trump Flee the Squad in New West Side Story Parody

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President Donald Trump tries to evade the Squad the informal nickname for new U.S. representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley in a new West Side Story spoof from The Simpsons.

The 90-second clip is fittingly titled West Wing Story and boasts a parody of the musicals famous number, America. In it, Trump sings to a picture of the Squad, They shouldnt be in America/No one but me America/No taxes for me in America/This is my natural hair-ica! Soon Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar and Pressley are chasing Trump through the White House, firing back, Youre Boris Johnson without the class/Cant wait to see you behind prison glass/Your nose is right up Putins ass/We say its time to impeach you fast.

The clip ends with Trump getting swept up in a can-can line featuring all the 2020 Democratic primary hopefuls, trying to keep pace with the high kicks before inevitably running out of breath. Whos the old man now? an animated Biden cracks.

The Simpsons will return for its 30th season September 29th on Fox.

The OA: Netflix Cancels Series After Two Seasons

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Netflix has canceled The OA, the mind-bending fantasy-drama series co-created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, four months after launching its second and assumedly final season. The show, which debuted in December 2016, starred Marling as Prairie Johnson, a once-blind woman who returns home after being missing for seven years, her sight mysteriously restored.

Cindy Holland, Netflixs head of original content, told The Hollywood Reporter that the network is incredibly proud of the programs 16 mesmerizing chapters. She added, [Were] grateful to Brit and Zal for sharing their audacious vision and for realizing it through their incredible artistry. We look forward to working with them again in the future, in this and perhaps many other dimensions.

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Marling addressed the cancelation in a lengthy Instagram post, writing that she and Batmanglij are deeply sad not to finish this story. She continued, The first time I heard the news I had a good cry. So did one of our executives at Netflix who has been with us since the early days when we were sketching out Haps basement on the floor of our production office in Queens. Its been an intense journey for everyone who worked on and cared about this story.

Batmanglij was more succinct in his social media eulogy, writing, The OA (2016-2019).

In 2017, Marling spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the shows long-term vision and scope.From the very beginning when we were on our own daydreaming a story, we definitely thought, How can we construct something that, many seasons out, has a satisfying end? So there is an end and there is an answer to every riddle, and nothing is done to just be sound and fury going nowhere. It all goes somewhere. And as to whether or not we get to tell that, I certainly hope that we do. There is a place that season two already begins in our minds and a place in which it ends.

Best Movies and TV to Stream in September: The Politician, Transparent Musicale Finale, and Wu-Tang

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On Netflix, Zach Galifianakis extends a Funny or Die sensation to feature length; Ryan Murphy makes a splash with a cutthroat political series; Sacha Baron Cohen takes leave of TV for a more serious turn; and Booksmart breakout Kaitlyn Dever gets on the true crime bandwagon alongside Toni Collette and Merritt Wever. Meanwhile, Hulu mines drama from the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan and confronts the bitter truth of the Harvey Weinstein takedown, while Amazon has the top-secret new project from BoJack Horsemans creative team. Heres what youll be streaming in September.

Between Two Ferns: The Movie (Netflix, Sep. 20th)
How does one sculpt three-minute morsels of online cringe comedy in which Zach Galifianakis awkwardly grills celebrities while flanked by decorative flora into a feature film? Take the shoestring-budgeted public access show on the road, for starters. Things get meta as Galifianakis, playing the same off-kilter version of himself as in the webseries, convinces none other than Will Ferrell to give him a network talk show. But first, hell have to trek across America tracking down interview subjects word is that Peter Dinklage, Keanu Reeves, and David Letterman made the cut to seal the deal. Q&A sessions have never been so exquisitely uncomfortable.

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Creepshow (Shudder, Sep. 26th)
In 1982, Stephen King joined forces with George Romero for an antic anthology film collecting five short tales of the macabre, then again in 1987 for a sequel with three more. This spinoff series adds another twelve to the total, albeit without the participation of the original creators. But a King yarn provides a basis for a couple segments, and theyve lined up a murderers row of writers to adapt horror classics and pen their own originals. Gas-mask-clad Nazi commandants, shambling reanimated corpses, and humanoid-animal hybrid monstrosities populate the episodes, and the cast list is no less eclectic, featuring Giancarlo Esposito alongside Big Boi and Kid Cudi. Take your pick of terrors.

The Politician (Netflix, Sep. 27th)
Netflix bought five years of Ryan Murphy for a cool three hundred million, and his big entre to streaming is this multi-season saga of political shenanigans, high-school-style. Meet Payton Hobart (Tony winner Ben Platt) as he rises through the ranks of American democracy. Bear witness to the birth of his carnivorous ambition with his high school election, and watch how he learns how to manipulate the public with help from Zoey Deutch plays his sickly, sympathy-point-gaining running mate quell a scandal and other skills that will help win him votes by any means necessary. Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Lange and Bob Balaban (along with a few late-act surprises) are also onboard. Its a classically Murphian combination of camp wit and glorious stunt casting.

The Spy (Netflix, Sep. 6th)
When Sacha Baron Cohens face appears onscreen, its generally a sign that theres a ruse afoot and someones not in on it. Not so with this rare straight-faced dramatic turn for the actor, which casts him as espionage professional Eli Cohen, the most respected agent in the history of the Israeli intelligence unit. The limited series concentrates on his work in Damascus during the Sixties, in which Cohen wormed his way into Syrias highest echelons of power and uncovered anti-Israel operations before they could be sprung. The former Borat has always been a magnet for scandal, but with the new shows sensitive subject matter and U.S.-Israel relations growing more complicated by the day, he could find himself at the center of an entirely different sort of controversy.

Tall Girl (Netflix, Sep. 13th)
For a teenage girl, it aint easy being six-foot-one. Thats the quandary facing Jodi Kreyman (played by real-life tall girl Ava Michelle), a high schooler looking for love and looming over the rest of her grade. This romcom explores the highs and lows mostly the highs of her search for a boyfriend wholl love every inch of her as is, unencumbered by male insecurity about being the shorter half of the couple. Most of the boys her age arent nearly that mature, however, leaving Jodi unlucky in love and more self-conscious than the already-steep adolescent baseline. If one more jokester asks her how the weather is up there, itll be one too many.

Transparent Musicale Finale (Amazon, Sep. 27th)
The so-called final season of Amazons Emmy magnet is really a musical send-off at feature length, with the show dipping into fantasy to capture the Pfefferman family grief process. Everyones convened to mourn the death of their transgender moppa/family figurehead Maura; the widow (Judith Light) and the adult Pfefferman children (Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker, and Gaby Hoffmann) are left in a toe-tapping existential spiral. They sing their way through complicated meditations on gender and Judaism in a production equal parts Broadway and Advanced Feminist Theory 301. It ends not with a bang, but a Broadway-style extravaganza.

Unbelievable (Netflix, Sept. 13th)
Theres a serial rapist on the loose, but the cops remain skeptical after the shaken survivors of his brutal attacks have trouble keeping the details of their stories straight. Two female detectives (Toni Collette and Merritt Wever) recognize a serious crime when they see one, however, and take the investigation into their own hands. Working closely and empathetically with the assaulted women (Kaitlyn Dever and Danielle Macdonald), they give a voice to the voiceless and pursue justice on behalf of women everywhere. Adapted from a ProPublica article and directed by the quietly brilliant Lisa Cholodenko, its a morbidly engrossing true crime potboiler with a strong pedigree.

Undone (Amazon, Sep. 13th)
BoJack Horseman co-creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and his regular producer Kate Purdy continue to expand the boundaries of animation in their newest project. Alita: Battle Angel breakout Rosa Salazar assumes cartoon form as Alma, a woman who emerges from a gnarly car accident banged up but imbued with newfound powers to bend the fabric of reality. With guidance from her father (Bob Odenkirk), she tests the limits of her fantastical abilities and launches herself into realms of pure abstraction beyond the capabilities of live-action entertainment. BoJack often pushed the formal envelope, and in the teams tinkering with rotoscoping techniques, that experimental spirit has been freely unleashed.

Untouchable (Hulu, Sep. 2nd)
Of all the powerful predators felled by the revelations of the Me Too movement, none went down harder than Harvey Weinstein. The Oscar-hoarding producer was once feared as too influential to challenge, but the honesty and bravery of a shockingly large contingent of accusers proved that a supposedly invincible man could still be dethroned. This documentary goes face to face with the women responsible for exposing the brutal truth Paz de la Huerta, Rosanna Arquette, Zelda Perkins and others and devotes the lions share of its run time to harrowing interviews that allow them to confront the memory of their trauma in a safe space. This film helps put it all on record.

Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu, Sep. 4th)
Self-mythologizing has always been a big part of the Wu-Tang Clans insular world and this series dramatizing their rise-to-fame years aims to take their legend one level deeper. The Nineties have just hit New York, and while crack creeps into the streets, a group of young visionaries subsisting on a steady diet of kung-fu flicks and killer weed chart a path out of poverty. The RZA, the GZA, OlDirty Bastard, Raekwon, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and Inspectah Deck come together to turn their virtuosic skills for rapping and beat-making into a legitimate living, but in the land of Shaolin, the path to stardom can be treacherous. Ashton Sanders, Shameik Moore, and Siddiq Saunderson all star in a genuine hip-hop superhero origin story.

James Bond 25 Confirms Title: No Time to Die

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The 25th James Bond film has confirmed its title, No Time to Die. The announcement came from the official 007 Twitter account, which also confirmed Daniel Craigs return to the franchise as its protagonist. The film will premiere April 3rd, 2020, in the U.K. and April 8th in the U.S.

Daniel Craig returns as James Bond, 007 in NO TIME TO DIE. Out in the UK on 3 April 2020 and 8 April 2020 in the US. #Bond25 #NoTimeToDie pic.twitter.com/qxYEnMhk2s

James Bond (@007) August 20, 2019

No Time to Die marks Craigs fifth turn as James Bond and follows 2015sSpectre. Craigs first 007 film was 2006sCasino Royale, having taken over the role from Pierce Brosnan.Craig previously stated in 2017 that he would be returning for the 25th Bond film.

No Time to Die wasoriginally slated for a November 2019 release with famed British director Danny Boyle leading the project, but was postponed after Boyle left and was replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective,Beasts of No Nation).FleabagandKilling Eve mastermind Phoebe Waller-Bridge was also brought in to help punch up the script.

According to Reuters,No Time to Die will see Bond enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica after leaving active service before an old friend, Felix Leiter, from the CIA turns up asking for help. Bond then embarks on a mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist while hunting down a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology a classic Bond film, in other words.

Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw will all reprise their roles as M, Moneypenny and Q, respectively.

Watch Soldiers Fight Time to Keep Troops Alive in Trailer for World War I Drama 1917

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Two British soldiers are tasked with carrying a fateful message across enemy lines to an imperiled battalion in the chilling new trailer for Sam Mendes World War I film, 1917.

1917 stars George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman as Schofield and Blake, the two soldiers handed the harrowing mission by a commanding officer played by Colin Firth. In the trailer, Firths character warns the pair that a battalion is in danger of being massacred if they go ahead with a planned attack, and the only way to save them is if Blake and Schofield are able to deliver the warning message in time. Complicating matters, Blakes own brother is one of the soldiers at risk of being slaughtered.

The clip goes on to capture Schofield and Blakes frantic race against time as they tear through trenches and swamps filled with dead bodies, and streak across battlefields while bombs explode just behind them. As Benedict Cumberbatchs character gravely warns, There is only way this war ends last man standing.

1917 will also star Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden and Claire Duburcq. Mendes wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Whered You Go, Bernadette: Blanchett-Led Bestseller Gets Lost in Translation

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Richard Linklater has already proved himself a master surveyor of the rocky terrain of motherhood think of the complexity of Patricia Arquettes Oscar-winning performance in his Boyhood. Adapting Maria Semples 2012 wild, reckless bestseller seems like a logical next step on that turbulent maternal highway, given that it told the story of an architect named Bernadette Fox. Shes the winner of a MacArthur genius grant for creating her 20-Mile House, constructed from materials sourced within 20 miles of the home. But when a tycoon bought the place and destroyed it, a crushed Bernadette retreated to Seattle, a place she riotously despises, to live in seclusion with her Microsoft-star husband and raising their teen daughter. The author fashioned her book out of letters, emails, texts, newspaper clippings, and police reports that kicked in when Bernadette went missing.

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Where did she go? Thats the book and the movie. And Linklater, who charted to perfection the chaotic course of a relationship in his landmark Before trilogy 1985s Before Sunrise, 2004s Before Sunset,2013s Before Midnight should be the ideal choice to bring the novel to the screen with all its mad, crazy-quilt exuberance in place, right?

Not so, as it turns out. Whered You Go, Bernadette, with a timid script by Linklater, Holly Gent, and Vincent Palmo Jr., reduces the book to a pedestrian run-through that never takes flight. Cate Blanchett plays Bernadette with her customary elegance, erudition, and acerbic wit, but her heroine has had her wings clipped. The narrative bumps in the book have been sanded off: Bernadettes husband, Elgin (Billy Crudup), a selfish cheater in Semples view, comes to the screen with his heart always in the right place. The snappiest scenes are between Bernadette and her daughter, Bee (a terrific Emma Nelson), Moms de facto best and only friend whos nonetheless been kept in the dark about her mothers past accomplishments. Its Bee, soon off to Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, who pushes her parents to take a family trip. Bee is studying Shackleton at school and thinks Antarctica, of all places, will nudge Mom out of her rut.

In truth, Bernadette is hitting the breaking point, wrangling with a snob neighbor (Kristen Wiig) who falsely accuses her of running over her foot with her car. Worse, our suburbanite on the verge of a nervous breakdown has disastrously turned over the running of her life and finances to Manjula, a virtual assistant that turns out to be something far more sinister. Thats when Elgin brings in a therapist (Judy Greer) to stage an intervention, provoking Bernadette to run for her life and leave her family behind.

The conflict comes to a head in Antarctica, where Bernadettes family goes in pursuit of her. The trip through the dangerous seas of the Drake Passage is meant to symbolize Moms own surging inner journey. But Linklaters becalmed treatment of Bernadettes crisis never leaves a doubt of smooth sailing ahead. A father to three daughters, the director has stated he sees the film as an intense portrait of motherhood, and hes simply too good at what he does not to let his soulful artistry show through. But something crucial is missing. Semples book is also about the damage done by a career-stifled mother not just to herself, but to her husband, daughter, neighbors, and everyone whose lives she touched. Its the human devastation that gets short shrift in a movie that turns the hot, hilarious, out-for-blood Bernadette into the thing she hates most: conventional.

Silicon Valley Goes to Washington in Season Six Trailer

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Silicon Valley goes to Washington, D.C. in the latest trailer for the sixth and final season of the HBO tech-savvy comedy series.

The teaser offers a send-up of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbergs infamously awkward testimony in front of Congress, with Pied Piper CEO Richard Hendricks (played by Thomas Middleditch) causing havoc on Capitol Hill as the tech community answers lawmakers questions.

He looks like a child in a messy custody hearing, Martin Starrs Gilfoyle quips of Hendricks CSPAN appearance.

The trailer doesnt forecast much in terms of Season Six plot, but Hendricks reveals a portion of his plans to Congress: I promise I will end this tyranny by creating an internet of the people, by the people and for the people, so help me God.

The seven-episode sixth and final season of Silicon Valley premieres October 27th.

D.A. Pennebaker, Legendary Documentarian, Dead at 94

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D.A. Pennebaker, a champion of the cinma-vrit approach to documentary, which emphasized intimate portraits of its subjects, died Thursdayfrom natural causes, his son Frazer confirmed to Rolling Stone. He was 94.

Chronicling rock stars and political operatives, Pennebaker sought to strip away the artifice both in nonfiction films and from the famous figures who populated his movies to craft deceptively casual snapshots of people we thought we knew. Whether in Dont Look Back (about Bob Dylans 1965 tour of England) or The War Room (a look behind the scenes of Bill Clintons 1992 presidential campaign), his handheld camera made viewers feel as if they were along for the ride as history was taking place. Concert films such as Monterey Pop and Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars captured the passion and inventiveness of rock musics cultural zenith, while 2001s Startup.com (which he produced) examined the internet bubble of the late 20th century through the deteriorating friendship of two entrepreneurs. No matter the film, though, Pennebaker was open to the randomness of life to provide unpredictability and energy to his fly-on-the-wall portraits. As he said in 2017, Half the things that happened to me, that I look back on and were really good, were all kind of I think of as luck. Chance.

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Donn Alan Pennebaker was born July 15, 1925, growing up in Chicago to a father, a successful photographer, who divorced his mother when he was still a boy. I didnt want to be what he was, Pennebaker later admitted. He had no time for a family. After studying engineering at Yale, he worked as a carpenter for about a decade before deciding to focus on writing and painting. Eventually, he turned his attention to filmmaking, which led to his first short, 1953s Daybreak Express, about an elevated New York subway line. Scored to Duke Ellington, the non-narrative Daybreak Express was an early indicator of Pennebakers ability to meld music with images, and soon he teamed up with fellow documentarian Robert Drew and others to form Drew Associates, a collective that advocated for a new kind of nonfiction cinema unfussy, lacking polish or traditional talking-head interviews that offered viewers direct, unvarnished access to the films subject.

Pennebaker put that theory into practice on Primary, a 1960 documentary about the Democratic primary in Wisconsin, in which he served as a cameraman. Even more importantly, it was while working on that film that he helped create a lighter, portable sound-recording camera a crucial development in the history of nonfiction filmmaking. It was the synch that really changed documentaries, Pennebaker explained to Film Comment, later adding that, before Primary, [E]verything had to be lip synched when we edited. We had to find the synch. Nothing was even cued. So that was a big problem.

No longer encumbered, he was able to work much more quickly and freely, which he did brilliantly when he signed on to direct a film about Dylan as he toured Britain in 1965. The two men had a handshake deal but no formal plan regarding what Pennebaker would shoot. Dylan was important that was the first thing I was convinced of, the filmmaker recalled. I wanted to find out more about him, and I didnt know any other way. Asking questions was no good; I wanted to watch Dylan in as intimate a way as possible.

The resulting film, Dont Look Back, is one of the quintessential rock movies of the 1960s, tagging along with the young singer-songwriter just as hes ditching his persona of a folk-singing poet and preparing to embrace electric guitars. The Dylan we meet in the documentary is magnetic, surly, exceptionally witty and, above all, unguarded in a way he never would be again. As for the films iconic opening, in which Dylan holds a series of cue cards printed with some of the lyrics to Subterranean Homesick Blues as the song plays on the soundtrack, it became the model for the modern music video.

Dont Look Back took more than a year to find a distributor many balked at its shaky, gritty look but despite its lofty reputation now, Pennebaker never conceived the film as a salute to the voice of a generation or as a conventional rock doc. What I thought was, this person is trying to generate himself, Pennebaker told The New York Times in 2016. Hes trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to do. So I filmed him talking to people and listening to people. When the concerts came, I would only shoot little parts of them. I didnt want it to be a music film. I wanted it to be a film about a person who was finding out who he was.

In Dont Look Backs wake, Pennebaker became an in-demand filmmaker among rock artists, whether shooting the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival for Monterey Pop or witnessing the power of David Bowie and Depeche Modes concerts. But his tastes were wide-ranging: He also made a film about John DeLorean, 1981s DeLorean, in which Pennebaker followed the car designer around Europe as he showed off his namesake vehicle. And then there was 1983s Rockaby, about the preparations to stage a Samuel Beckett play. It was also during this time that he married Chris Hedegus, who had been his collaborator since the late 70s. They continued their creative partnership for the next several decades, peaking with 1993s The War Room, which spotlighted Clintons chief strategists James Carville and George Stephanopoulos and gave a rare glimpse into how a modern campaign is waged. The film earned Pennebaker his only Oscar nomination.

Pennebaker may have trained his cameras on political figures and other newsworthy subjects, but he insisted that his films werent works of advocacy but, rather, simple reporting. Whatever happens when youre shooting necessarily becomes part of your film because its what you saw, he said in 2016. Were not making a sermon. I think thats the failure in a lot of current documentaries. Theyre sermonizing, and for perfectly understandable reasons they want people to act better, or whatever. Its the same reason the bishops sermonize, but thats not our kind of filmmaking.

He backed up his claim in recent films like Startup.com (which Hedegus co-directed alongside Jehane Noujaim) and Unlocking the Cage, which located the personal, human story within the national headlines. Unlocking the Cage followed attorney Steve Wise as he fights for animal rights through the court system, but as always Pennebaker wanted to look at the individuals rather than the larger apparatus. It also helped that he was often captivated by the people he documented. Could I make a film about somebody I didnt like, or whose political message I disagreed with? Probably, he once said. But it wouldnt be as much fun to do.

Pennebaker received his only Emmy nomination in 2004 for Elaine Stritch at Liberty, and the following year the International Documentary Association awarded him with its Career Achievement Award. In 2013, he received an Honorary Oscar. But perhaps the strongest indicator of his legacy is the number of homages made to his work, particularly Dont Look Back, which has been spoofed and copied in everything from Bob Roberts to Im Not There. And while others would often credit him for being a groundbreaking documentarian, he never liked the word documentary being used to describe his vivid, candid films.

For me, I think of them as home movies, he said in 2015, because theyre made by one person and not made with the expectancy of a large return. Theyre made the way music is written, or books. Its just one persons take on whats going on around them. You shouldnt be the adversary, with a lot of equipment to protect you. You should really be vulnerable just as the people you film are vulnerable.

The Long Journey of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

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Once upon a time, Jim Henson found himself stranded in the middle of a snowstorm. To pass the time, the Muppet Show creator began to dream up an elaborate story of mystics, monsters, and two different races a vulturelike aristocracy called the Skeksis and a kindhearted, elfin people known as Gelflings battling over the fate of their planet, Thra. By the time the storm ended, Henson had a 25-page movie treatment. He called it The Dark Crystal. The pioneering puppeteer was prepared to stake his whole career and his relationship with his No. 1 benefactor, Lord Lew Grade, to make this movie a reality.

When his passion project, co-directed with Frank Oz, finally hit theaters in 1982, audiences were confused: Were we dropped into the middle of a story, and what, exactly, was going on here? Why was everything so visually dark and foreboding? And why was the man who gave the world Kermit the Frog telling such an intense, too-scary-for-kids tale of corruption, eco-doom and genocide? Henson was heartbroken. But over the years, the movie began to find an audience. If you were of a certain age and fantasy-obsessed demographic, you may have watched The Dark Crystal a million times and/or worn out several VHS tapes of the film. It became a shared secret, a bona fide cult movie. Its fans have been clamoring for a sequel for decades.

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Thanks to Netflix, theyre about to get their wish. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, a 10-episode prequel series that premieres on the streaming service on August 30th, not only revisits the late Hensons fantasy world but expands upon it to an impressive degree. Set long before the 1982 films story, Age of Resistance follows three young Gelflings a royal guard, a scholarly princess, and a member of an agrarian clan living underground as they learn that their Skeksis masters are using the life-giving totem of the series title to gain immortality. They need to expose the plan in time, or else. And with characters voiced by Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Andy Samberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Game of Thrones Lena Headey, Awkwafina, Sigourney Weaver, Alicia Vikander and many, many others, the new project has a serious A-list pedigree.

For years, Jim Henson Co. CEO Lisa Henson had been trying to get a new Dark Crystal off the ground. I remember going on set as a child and seeing it develop over the years, seeing the puppets being built, she recalls. It was so different from what people expected from my dad and he was so proud of that. Lisa knew the film was beloved by a small but passionate few, but it wasnt until she suddenly found myself talking to a roomful of people at Comic Con [in the mid 00s] and there being tremendous excitement about another Crystal story that the time seemed right to return to Thra. Samurai Jack creator Genddy Tartakovsky had begun working on a sequel in 2006, only to have financing fall through; the storyline inspired a graphic novel, The Power of the Dark Crystal. Other ideas came and went.

Then filmmaker Louis Leterrier the French director behind The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk and the Clash of the Titans remake took a meeting with Lisa Henson in 2011. His one question: So what are you doing with The Dark Crystal? Hed obsessed over what he called this weird UFO of a movie as a kid, seeing it endlessly in film clubs and on TV while growing up in Paris (It was the first movie to scar mebut in a good way!), and asked to take a crack at a film sequel. Meanwhile, Henson was developing an animated prequel series. When she pitched Netflix on the toon, execs asked, Well, why cant you do it like the original, with puppets? The projects were combined. Writers Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews came on board as executive producers/showrunners. Leterrier spent six months filming a live-action chase scene as a test, and Netflix was sold.

The rest of the industry, however, remained slightly skeptical or somewhat disinterested. Leterrrier remembers several meetings, and more than a few dinner parties, where people would ask him what he was working on. When hed tell them his new project was a follow-up to Hensons 1982 anti-Muppet movie, the answer was usually: Oh, is that the one with Bowie? No, thats Labyrinth, the director would gently remind them, referring to Hensons 1986 fantasy featuring a goblin king, a kidnapped 16-year-old and the former Thin White Duke sporting ones of the cinemas greatest blown-out mullets. Im doing the one with the dinosaurs in dresses,' Leterrier would tell them, cackling. So many people just couldnt remember what it was. But fans remembered. I remembered. There was this feeling that we could pay homage to Jim, and to his work, and really do something unique and new with what he gave us.

Both he and Lisa Henson hope that longtime fans will appreciate how the Age of Resistance pays tribute to the original without being a slavish imitation or a mere nostalgia trip; they respectively mention that the mix of creative Dark Crystal brain trusts from back in the day (including concept artist Brian Froud, who contributed several new designs along with his wife Wendy and son Toby) and next-gen puppeteers gave the series continuity without a sense of creakiness. Theyre each anxious for younger viewers to step into this universe for the first time. And they love that, like the 1982 film, the 2019 show retains the Grimms Fairy Tales feel of the senior Hensons storytelling combined with a childlike sense of imagination. It was the most political thing he ever did, talking about abuse of power and distrust of the ruling class, Leterrier says. So to be able to put this into the world at this moment. It took years to make, but Im glad its coming out now.

Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles Review An Untraditional Documentary on a Beloved Musical

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A documentary about a 55-year-old musical sounds like a quaint and nostalgic cinematic scrap book. But Fiddler:Miracle of Miraclesturns out be an exhilarating, expansive, warts-and-all look into 1964 Broadway phenomenonFiddler on the Roof. Director Max Lewkowicz delivers an emotional powerhouse in which none of the compromises, growing pains and ego wars of Fiddlers creation are left out in the name of tribute. The film is dedicated to the memory of Hal Prince, who produced the original show and died last month, and truly documents what goes into the creation of a masterpiece. (Never mind that the shows first review in Variety declared it had no memorable songs in a score that includes If I Were a Rich Man, Matchmaker, Matchmaker, and Sunrise, Sunset.)

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Based on the short stories of turn-of-the-century Russian-Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, the show (set in 1905)focuses on Tevye and the tiny czarist Russian village of Anatevka. Themilkman brings humor and heart to struggles with poverty, a strong-willed wife, and five marriage-age daughters. The stirrings of feminist rebellion can be felt as the young women push back against the attempts of Yenta the matchmaker one defies tradition to marry a non-Jew. Tevye talks to God about his problems, especially when his people face religious persecution through violent pogroms and are forced to leave their shtetl as refugees facing a scarily uncertain future. If youre wondering why Fiddler is so pertinent to our tumultuous present that theres an all-YiddishJoel Grey production of the show currently on Broadway, heres your answer.

In Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, archival interviews with the shows creators composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and librettist Joseph Stein are mixed with those from contemporary artists like Stephen Sondheim, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Fran Lebowitz, Calvin Trillin, and Alisa Solomon, who extol the shows enduring value. We hear from Norman Jewison, the director of theOscar-winning 1971 film version, who hilariously had to apologize to the studio for not being a Jew, despite a last name that suggested otherwise.

Lewkowiczs film allows us to see how Fiddler on the Roof was put together by a band of outsiders who constantly questioned its artistic viability and commerciality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the portrait of Jerome Robbins, the shows dazzling, notoriously difficult director and choreographer. Conflicted about his Judaism and sexuality, Robbins, who died in 1998, was a domineering genius. Zero Mostel, the formerly blacklisted actor who starred as the original Tevye, so resented Robbins for naming names at Senator Joe McCarthys anti-communist witchhunts that he barely spoke to Robbins during rehearsals. Actor Austin Pendleton, who costarred in the original production as Motel the tailor, recounts a stinging story about how Robbins insulted him, calling him physically repulsive and saying how hard it must have been for the actress playing his wife to act opposite him. But then the film cuts to Robbins at work, creating the glorious Bottle Dance for Tzeitel and Motels wedding in which the male guests move with bottles balanced on their heads, symbolizing the precariousness of life as Jews in Anatevka. The sequence remains one of the finest achievements in choreography as characterization.

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles makes itself essential viewing by chronicling the turbulent genesis of a global sensation. But its real miracle is demonstrating whyit continues to entertain and illuminate, from Tokyo to a Brooklyn middle school where an African-American girl now plays the role of Tevyes wife, Golde, and back to Broadway.

Why Canceling The Hunt Was Wrong

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Even if youre not a horror-film fanatic, youve heard about The Hunt. A grisly-looking, modern grindhouse film, it was supposed to come out through Universal Pictures at the end of September. The plot was said to feature wealthy liberals as portrayed by Hilary Swanks well-dressed villain who kidnap jus-folks types and put them into a forested compound where theyre picked off one by one. Originally titled, per The Hollywood Reporter, Red State vs. Blue State, the movie seems to boast a comparable mixture of paranoia, political topicality and pulp fiction and is produced by Blumhouse, Hollywoods finest purveyor of smart, low-budget scary movies such as the Oscar-winning social satire Get Out and the Purge franchise.

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But The Hunt is most likely on your radar because it might never get a chance to see the light of day. Thats because Universal, the Comcast-owned studio that produced the film, abruptly canceled its release after President Donald Trump angrily tweeted about it last Sunday. The president, almost assuredly egged on by Fox News drum-beating, decided to sound off on the movie even though he, like the rest of us, hasnt seen it. Acting like an angry fanboy, the kind that has little information about an upcoming project but just knows theyre mad anyway, our commander-in-chief found it prudent to render a verdict sight-unseen.

Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! he tweeted on August 9th. They like to call themselves Elite, but they are not Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country! Trump chose to see The Hunt as an attack on MAGA voters you know, real Americans and thus inflamed anger against a film that had released all of one trailer to that point.

In a sane society, we wouldnt have a president sounding off on something as minor as an action-horror movie like it was a major catastrophe. And we also wouldnt have a studio do what Universal did in response, which was surrender. While Universal Pictures had already paused the marketing campaign for The Hunt, after thoughtful consideration, the studio has decided to cancel our plans to release the film, the company said in a statement on August 10th. We stand by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators, like those associated with this satirical social thriller, but we understand that now is not the right time to release this film.

There are reasonable motivations to call a time out. In the wake of other mass shootings and tragedies, the unveiling of films and TV shows has been pushed back everything from Arnold Schwarzeneggers 2002 thriller Collateral Damage to Ryan Phillippes USA series Shooter in a desire to be sensitive to still-fresh atrocities. Maybe if it had merely been in response to the deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton, the studios decision would have been understandable thoughtful, even. Respectful restraint is welcome at certain moments.

But what makes Universals disappearing of The Hunt so chilling is that those shootings probably arent what ultimately goaded the executives into taking such drastic action. Its hard not to think that Trumps invective, which can work like a Bat-Signal for his most devoted followers, created the very real scenario of possible violence at public screenings. Never mind that, as National Review film critic Kyle Smith put it, President Trump doesnt have the most finely tuned irony gauge; he seemed unable to understand that the globalists in the film are plainly the bad guys and that the trailer was satirizing rather than saluting the hunters it portrays. The simple fact is that if the president misreads the films possible angle if he doesnt understand that its a satire that might actually try to put non-elites in a positive light and decides to lash out, his actions can have extreme, and deadly, consequences. Universal isnt merely postponing the release. The studio is trying to pretend the movie never existed. (The Hunts website has been scrubbed like its a biohazard.)

Maybe the movie will end up on Netflix. Maybe Universal will give it a small theatrical release and push it onto VOD simultaneously, like the way Sony handled the 2014 Kim Jong-un comedy The Interview. Whatever ultimately happens to The Hunt, however, the studio brass has decided its not worth the headache. And for artists and moviegoers alike, thats the problem.

Superhero flicks, Star Wars sequels, Disney live-action reimaginings, Pixar films: These are the properties Hollywood pledges allegiance to, in the hopes of netting close to a billion dollars with each new installment. And when blockbusters do cause a stir like when there was a shooting in a Colorado theater that showed The Dark Knight Rises a movie of that magnitude isnt getting canceled. Theres too much money invested, too many careers at stake. In that case, the show must go on. But at a time when fewer and fewer risks are being taken by the major studios, Universals decision doesnt just feel like cowardice but rank expediency. Maybe The Hunt would have made a tidy profit Blumhouse films usually do but, apparently, the upside for an action-thriller with few big names, a generic title and a familiar premise wasnt worth it. (As more than one commentator has pointed out, wait til Trump and his minions find out about The Most Dangerous Game, published almost 100 years ago and the inspiration for dozens of movies, including The Hunt and the upcoming horror movie Ready or Not.)

And Universal shouldnt pretend it stand[s] by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators. The brouhaha was their opportunity to prove who it stands behind, and it whiffed spectacularly. Its not as if they didnt know what it was getting into by making the film: Last year, the studio won a competitive auction to land the rights to the spec script written by Lost and Leftovers mastermind Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, the son of fellow Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse. It then tapped indie provocateur Craig Zobel (Compliance, Z for Zachariah) to direct. If Universal had the guts to honor bold and visionary creators a year ago, theres no reason to stop now.

But whats most upsetting is that the film cant even defend itself. Since no critics or journalists have seen The Hunt the best the Hollywood Reporter could do was read a copy of the script and talk to studio insiders who had watched a cut all of us, up to and including the president, are just speculating. Films arent judged by their prerelease hype theyre judged by the quality of the actual work. Whether its a third-rate Purge rip-off or the second coming of Dr. Strangelove, well never know because Universal has buried it and in the process, created a dangerous precedent.

Movies have to be bigger than one president, or one ideology. They tell us about whats going on around us responding to and sometimes influencing national and global events. Theyre an imperfect but crucial barometer of who we are, what we fear and what we aspire to be. They show us up there on the screen, and then they let us sort out what to make of the whole thing.

The Hunt deserves that same chance, as do dozens of other movies that might offend your parents, a school board, a foreign government or the President of the United States of America. Last week, Swank was asked about the controversy surrounding the movie. [N]o ones seen the film, she said. You cant really have a conversation about it without understanding what its about. Audiences just want that opportunity. More than ever, we need those conversations instead of hunting around for reasons to shut down the dialogue.